Full of Sound and Fury
by Ol'Velsper
Summary: A set of drabbles. May someday evolve into their own stories.
1. Chapter 1

Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière found herself stirring as a chill wind swept past parts of her body that they simply shouldn't have any business finding themselves brushing up against. Immediately, a sharp and stinging pain raced a little a bit above the back to the head.

She had never paid much attention to the explanations provided on Wave Theory and other nonsense she had been told before, but Louise vaguely remembered that was the part of the mind that was affected with certain types of Song Magic were invoked.

Not that she paid much heed to those claims before. Really.

The pink haired Noble shakily tried to get to her hands and knees. The loud ringing in her ears suddenly began to fade away as she heard a muffled shout before she was suddenly assisted as she got to her feet.

"Louise!" She blinked her pink eyes as she groggily stared. A dirty and bloodied Guiche was holding her a few inches away from her. Covered with dented and partially shattered armor, he was far from the boy she had first met in the Academy.

Louise's first reaction she had was to shove him away from her, but she held her arm as she glanced past him at the rapidly retreating island of Albion.

"...where are they!" With that, her groggy memory clicked into place as she exceeded the grip Guiche had on her shoulders with her own hands. The blond winced as he shook his head. Louise's nails dug into the open spots in his armor to get at his soft flesh.

"They stayed behind." Guiche muttered. Louise's horror began to mount as she pushed away from the Earth Mage as she raced for the back of the ship. On the way, she passed a weeping Siesta as Louise raced around wounded soldiers and frantic sailors, but she didn't have any time to pay attention to them.

"Louise!" Guiche shouted as he nearly knocked her down.

"No! I'm a Void Mage! I can stop it! Let me go!" Louise squirmed and threw fists at the man. Guiche remained stoic as his body jerked beneath the blows.

"They wanted you to live, dammit!" The blond reached up and lightly slapped her out of her hysteria. Louise gaped at the man.

The crowd around them suddenly gasped. Both Louise and Guiche snapped their attention back towards the island as two thick beams of golden light swept up towards the skies high above. Their ship began to shake as a voice comparable to Gods began to sing.

"Presia vaffa jenge/Let us banish them..

Oter siance/From this pristine land.."

From high above their airship, thick storm clouds began to sweep in from the south and east. The ship's engine rattled as intense turbulence began to cause the ship to shake. The double layering of the singer's voice continued to croon.

"Gaya/I never want this to happen again...

Vega zash murufana^re/This painful feeling..."

Several more beams of light began to lash out into the skies above. The ones that were already there and the new ones began to streak back and forth, almost searching for something.

"Diasee bexm/Child of divinity arrive..."

"Get more power to the engines!" The captain of the ship, dressed in fine regalia, shouted as he desperately took hold of the wildly spinning wheel on the airship with three of his men. The ship below Louise groaned as the back end of the ship began spinning to port side.

"Manac "Void"/I shall name thee "Void"..."

The final word seemingly was a signal as their ship shuddered, causing everyone that wasn't holding onto something to collapse to the ground. There were now eight spotlights wildly streaking upwards from the central island of Albion.

"H.m.m.r./Express through song..."

The clouds grew dark as they wildly swirled high above the island.

"Jenge x.y.n. sphaela dest/Destroy those who would hurt this world..."

"No! Don't do it!" Louise shrieked as she tried to leap to her feet.

"Vega cyuie sarla/This solemn song..."

The singer sounded pained now, breathing heavily as the cloud cover above Albion had turned the skies high above it allowed no starlight to come out.

"Inferiare qLYEjyu/My kin...

Inferiare qYEjyu/My love...

Inferiare qEjyu/My beloved...

Li Infel Granme Dia/I will protect you Master Louise!"

Turning it into an endless void of darkness. The pink haired girl and everyone else desperately attempted to stand, but an overwhelming force kept slamming the fallen ones, pinning them to the deck of the ship.

"Presia vaffa jenge/Let us banish them...

Oter siance/From this pristine land...

H.m.m.r./Express through song..."

Louise roared as she clawed onto the railing of the ship, and through a Herculean effort, managed to fight off the intense waves of gravity.

"It isn't worth your life!"

"Exec_"Void"!/Execute "Void"!"

All eight beams of light focused in the dead center of the absolute darkness above Albion as the singer triumphantly concluded their song. The dark hole in the sky was pierced in that single spot. Thousands of golden arrows fell down from the hole towards the island below.

A moment of silence passed as the intense force pinning everyone down faded.

The airship quaked once, and sharply dipped down, sending everyone into a panic as a massive dome of golden light exploded outwards from Albion. Wave after wave of energy buffeted them, sending the ship wildly bouncing.

Louise felt herself lean forwards and nearly flip over the railing she was clutching onto even as her heart shattered. She was saved at the last moment by Guiche, who grasped onto her and flung both of them back with a shout.

Both of the Nobles scrambled to their feet as they came crashing down in the center of the airship. Pained cries went up all around them as several other people attempted to recover even as the airship finally sharply regained flight with another thud.

"Oh Brimir..." Guiche breathed as he gazed back at the island. Even in the darkness of night and the distance between them and the island, Louise could make out several massive fires on the surface of the island.

The sound of a sobbing woman faintly reached Louise ears, but she continued to stare dully at the island.

"Vega cyuie sarla/This solemn song..." Siesta sang in the background through her tears.

* * *

><p>AN: The working title was going to be Exec_Void. The story is a Ar tonelico/Zero no Tsukaima crossover where Louise summons a reyvateil. The story actually officially starts here with Louise's reyvateil loyally overloading herself and blowing the area around her with a Void empowered Song Spell. From there, Tiffania manages to save the reyvateil, which had her broken body guided to the elf by Derflinger. The story would be about the reyvateil wandering through her broken psyche trying to piece her memories back together of how she and Louise met so she can get back to her.


	2. Chapter 2

It had been three months since Shirou had ...gone missing.

It was like a fresh hell had yawned open for Sakura Matou. The wounds on her heart, which had just begun to scab over, were ripped off her. Pus and blood then flowed from it as she was driven insane by All of the Worlds Evils and then...

Shirou had left her.

'What did I do wrong, senpai?'

As always, the darkness of the night held no answers.

Rin Tohsaka and Rider, respectively former Master and Servant of the Holy Grail War, had looks of weariness to their profiles as they looked up from where they were sitting in the abandoned living room of the Emiya home. Sakura Matou, eyes glassy and expression slightly slack, wandered past them for what seemed to be the fifth time this hour.

"I'll get her this time." Rider finally spoke up with a faint undertone of hate in her tone. "Someone has to get her to get off her feet, afterall." She rose from where they had been pretending to be a stable family unit. The table that the two made sure to keep in between themselves was dusty from disuse.

It was all a charade, of course. A kind lie for the older, kind-hearted woman that had nearly broken when her ward had gone missing and the girl that she had wished would marry that ward had gone into a living death.

It was a joke to think this could ever be a functioning family. Neither of the two women could stand the sight of one another now.

'You failure – you let him die.' Rin's eyes screamed. 'You hateful beast.'

'She's been dead for years because of your negligence.' Rider's eyes retorted with all the venom in her nature. The only reason the young girl still lived was only because Sakura couldn't afford to lose anything more.

The Gorgon shuddered at the look of anguish that had briefly appeared on Sakura's face when she saw the body. The trembling became visible as she recalled how everything that represented Sakura to the Gorgon was just...swept away to a dark recess in the young woman's mind.

Leaving only this puppet.

This horrible, lifeless puppet.

"Senpai..." Sakura moaned in agony. "Where are you?" Her breath hitched as the cool air of the night made her remember when Shirou had walked her home. Sakura's gag reflex kicked in as her traitorous mind turned in on itself as her memory expanded to the rest of the night.

With the pit of worms again.

The young woman collapsed on her knees in the middle of the yard as she dry heaved a few times. Acid and spittle flowed up her throat and over her lips and down her chin. Sakura rattled like a dry leaf in a storm, feeling pieces of her come undone with each shake as the phantom sensations of her dirty, dirty training ran across her skin.

The fog broke apart in Sakura's mind as she felt a pair of hands firmly grasp onto her shoulders.

…!

Then she was screaming and falling and squirming and the lustful worms kept coming and they wouldn't stop and god help me sister senpai anyone please just he-!

Even as Sakura collapsed to her side, she saw the beautiful goddess approach. "Sakura!" Rider quickly took Sakura's shaking body into her arms. Sakura let out pathetic mewls of agony as her mind deterriorated into a bawling child.

Yet Rider silently held Sakura, despite the wretched sight of her pathetic cries of sadness. The Servant's hands - capable of crushing anything she saw fit to destroying, merely tenderly stroked Sakura's hair. Rider quietly spoke nonsensical noises, modulating her voice to make it sound reassuring.

Sakura briefly remembered her mother before...before it all went terribly wrong. She began to bitterly weep into Rider's black sweater, desperately clutching at her Servant as she bawled and screamed until her throat went raw.

Rin trembled on the other side of the thin, wood door leading into the hall. Each of Sakura's mournful cries for their mother and her longing screams for Shirou brought a fresh wave of agony for the oldest of the sisters.

Yet despite the pain Rin felt, she could bring herself to cross the thin divide. So she sat at the door in silence and let her own tears of mourning for her own losses run down her cheeks.

Then it stopped.

Rin went still when Sakura's cries suddenly and bizarrely went quiet. A soft thump could be heard on the other side of the door, causing the older sister to leap to her feet.

"**RIN!**" Rider's bellow split the night as Rin threw open the door.

"Sakura!" Rin screamed.

Ilyasviel von Einzbern silently brooded as she overlooked the main foyer of her castle. In a fit of madness, she had torn down the very walls of the Einzbern Castle down around her with an elemental fury of raw prana a week ago.

Sella, her only remaining Servant, slowly picked through the remains, stacking the bricks off to the side. The Dress of Heaven, formed by the corpse and magic circuits of Leysritt, was still drapped on her body.

It silver surface had several tears and smudges from the month. The golden fabric was unraveling in several parts. Yet it still felt like Leysritt. So Ilya kept wearing the outfit.

'Stupid doll.' Ilya bitterly thought down to the slim maid. 'You were once my teacher, but now look at you. Desperately doing the one thing I had them add onto you to keep your death at bay. How the mighty have fallen.'

Sella merely continued to gather stones in a wheel barrow she had found in a storage room. She was the weakest of the three homunculi by far. Sella had been solely designed to teach magic, and any unneeded abilities were locked away. Even Ilya herself coud reinforce herself to grant herself the strength of an average teenager.

So the maid fought with each large chunk of stone. Her hands were raw, but Sella continued to silently clean up the annihilated foyer. If she ever stopped - she would surely die, but she continued gathering stone after stone.

In that moment, Sella looked as beautiful as Shirou had in his death.

'Why couldn't I have been made that way?' Ilya thought. The weight of her years, far beyond her child like appearance, settled down on her burnt out body. 'Less than ten months to go...' She bitterly closed her eyes. 'I never got to say goodbye to Shirou, and I never will now.'

Ilya pushed away from the half melted bannister she was standing by and plodded off to her room.

Sella continued to work tirelessly. No words of complaint left her mouth, nor did she cease her actions. This was the only life she had left. For the sake of Mistress Ilyasviel, she would not stop until the day that her youngest charge left the world.

Then she would follow.

The homunculus groaned as she felt her muscles tear along her legs once again. As soon as they did, she used her magecraft to mend them together. The burning sensation along her nerves was worked past as she lifted another stone and dropped it away in the wheel barrow to cart away.

She would proudly do Leysritt's, and Herakles', and her part in keeping a smile on Ilyasviel's face.

Sella turned and stood at attention when she heard a delicate cough behind her. The mistress gave her a strange smile when Sella attempted to delicately fold her bloody hands together in front of her dress as she attentively waited for her orders.

However, in her impudence Sella accidentally glanced away from her mistress's face to see that she was holding the artifact Avalon in her arms. Memories from her existence prior to this one appeared in her mind's eye in a split second.

Avalon looked much more worn down than it had the last time that the Sella model as a whole had last observed it. Its golden finished looked faintly rusty. Analysis showed that the metal had trace amounts of blood within it.

"Sella...have you ever heard of Gensokyo?" Mistress Ilyasviel kindly asked her. When Sella shook her head mutely in response, she gave her a smile. "I've been looking into rumors about the land." She began to explain. "Ever since Tohsaka returned Avalon to me from...well, from where it was."

Sella stayed silent as Mistress Ilyasviel's eyes briefly looked haunted.

"I want to leave this cold world, Sella." The silver haired girl closed her eyes. "One where I can't even see my brother when I die. Gensokyo is a new land, a plane that developed its own natural laws over time. With Avalon, we can open the gateway to it, Sella...we might have a chance to at least try and eek out a new life there."

Sella was about to ask her mistress when they'd leave, but the front door of the mansion suddenly collapsed on itself. She swiftly moved to protect Mistress Ilyasviel as the door slid to a stop in front of them, but her mistress's cry of shock behind her gave way to fury as a trio of females walked up to them.

The heir of Tohsaka was carrying Makiri's disciple-project while the long haired Servant of theirs merely ignored everything.

"Tohsaka! What the hell are y-" Both of the homunculi stiffened as they saw Makiri's state. The young woman's head was bonelessly lulling about with every motion that the Tohsaka heir made. Her purple eyes were hollow, empty of life. "By the gods, what happened to her?" Mistress Ilyasviel demanded as she walked up to the Makiri, shortly followed by Sella as the maid kept a wary eye on the Servant.

"We need Avalon." The Servant demanded, interrupting Tohsaka before she could speak. "Give it to us, now." She took a threatening step towards Mistress Ilyasviel, reaching for the sheath that belonged to her adopted brother and was now hers.

Even as Mistress Ilyasviel took a step back in surprise, Sella moved forwards. A lightning fast crack of a tendril of water, gathered from the environment itself, lashed out and smacked the Servant's hand back. With anyone else, that would have been enough to sever off a few fingers, but the Servant merely darkly scowled at her reddened fingers and then at Sella.

"Don't you dare touch my mistress." Sella quietly hissed as she took a combat stance to match Rider's own.

"Ilya, we don't have to do this!" Rin called around one of the ruined pillars in the foyer. She carefully covered the still Sakura with her own body as Rider overwhelmingly pressed Sella back where they were battling in the center. Rin resisted the urge to measure Sakura's pulse again as she wildly looked around as she felt a build up of prana by the heat in the air.

"You three are attacking me and you dare say that?" Ilya's voice sharply retorted as Sella let out a cry, having been kicked away from Rider as the agile Servant weaved through the furiously whipping tendrils of liquid Sella had summoned.

"Dammit, Einzbern! You saw Sakura! We need Avalon!"

"It's mine! It's the only thing that I have left of him now!"

Both girls' voices screeched across the air at each other. Rider charged towards Ilya's direction, but she was forced to turn her charge into a dive as Sella sent a wave of icy needles at the woman. The homunculus maid looked half dead at this point from Rin's perspective, dragging herself up on a single leg. Her dress was torn and bloody at Rider's hands.

"Is your maid's life less than that damn thing? The Gorgon **will** kill her and then you too if you don't give up!" Rin desperately tried to talk Ilya down. However, the homuclus was having none of it. The dark haired girl scowled as she heard her steady chanting on the other side of the hall.

She decided to make a break for it.

"Sakura!" Rider shouted, looking away from Sella as Rin left Sakura's body hidden behind the pillar. In that moment, the maid she was facing dove and tackled the Heroic Spirit. The Gorgon, caught unawares, went tumbling down with her.

"Tohsaka is heading your way, mistress!" Sella screamed.

Ilya sped up her chanting as Avalon began to spark and glow in between her hands.

'Get us there, get us there, get us there!' The homuculus squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her prana rapidly drain from her and into Avalon. The sheath threw off the blood and rust covering it as it regained its original gold and blue hue.

A swiftly growing dome of light began to erupt from within Avalon, drawing in prana from the entire room.

A hint of life entered Sakura's eyes. 'Sen..pai?' She rolled over to her side. Her hand reached in the direction she felt the golden light form as she tried to stagger to her feet. The drainage on her prana was negligible, but what she felt...

"Shirou!"

Rider gasped as her arms slipped from where they had been dominating Sella. The maid slipped out of her grasp as the Gorgon's body grew leaden with weight as the prana in the air rapidly dropped. The purple haired woman sank to her knees as her vision began to black out.

Rin gagged - feeling like someone had punched her in the throat. She collapsed onto her face as her legs failed her as the horrid sensation of weakness invaded her. "E-einzbern!" She croaked as she tried to aim her hand in the direction that Ilya had been, but before she could fire a curse, her aim was diverted by her little sister.

'Why?' Rin's eyes demanded as she gazed up at her serenely confident sister.

Sakura kept Rin's hand away from the rapidly expanding dome of light. "We're going to see him soon..." She promised as the dome of light consumed the two sisters.

Rider's form began to grow transparent as the dome swept closer to her and Sella, but before she could completely break apart, Sella was kneeling down by her side. 'Mistress wouldn't want an ally to die before we survey the land.' The maid thought as she placed her hands on the Gorgon's head and began to channel her own prana through to her as the dome swept them up.

Moments later, the room was completely empty of life.

In a traditional japanese home, Yukari Yakumo - a blonde haired woman in a white dress and a purple tabard glanced up from where she was playing on her Nintendo DS. Her sudden motion threatened to knock the white cap with purple ribbons on top of her head, but she reached up and adjusted it.

'Hoo...newcomers?' The woman smiled impishly, purple eyes glittering happily. 'Well, maybe they can be more fun than the last two people we got.' She set her DS to the side as she stood up. With a mere thought, a split in time/space behind her opened up.

The rip, held together at the edges with red ribbons, showed a beautiful garden filled with countless cherry blossoms in bloom.

Yukari cupped her hands together in front of her mouth. "Raaan!" She bellowed out in the direction of the kitchen. "I'm going to visit Yuyuko! Don't let Chen touch my DS while I'm gone!"

Another blonde haired woman, which a white cap over a set of fuzzy ears, poked her head into the room from the northern door. "Of course Mistress." Ran Yakumo leisurely replied. "Would you like me to make some tea and take it to you?"

"No, it's alright. Yuyuko's new servant seems to know his way around the kitchen." Yukari had a lavacsious grin on her face. Even if he was mopey, Shirou Emiya was at least a very interesting man. Much better than the normal Outsiders they got.

Ran stepped fully into the room, her own white dress with blue tabard clashing with the mass of nine golden, fluffy tails on her back. "Oh, can you ask him what he put in that last batch of mochi, Mistress? I really liked how it came out."

"Alright." Yukari suddenly had a sneaky look on her face. "But because you asked me for something, you'll have to pay me back."

"Mistress..?"

"I have five new Outsiders who came through the Border." Yukari held up her right hand, with the digits extended. "They punched a hole through it. So~" She fell back through her gap. "You fix the Hakurei Border~"

Ran waited until the gap had closed before she slapped her hand against her forehead.

'Oh well, I should have expected that from the great youkai of boundaries.'

* * *

><p>AN: This story's title is "It's Spring Again". It's based off Heaven's Feel Normal End, where Sakura lives out the rest of her days in misery. However, because she actually saw Shirou's body she couldn't lie to herself that he'd come back. This leads her to breaking. At the same time, Ilyasviel von Einzbern is planning on punching her way into Avalon, land of the Fairies, to reunite with Shirou. It's a desperate hope, fueled by the idea that Shirou had Avalon in him, so maybe he was drawn in.

In this story Avalon is Gensokyo.


	3. Chapter 3

Myrddin Emyrs was bored. The twelve year old boy had been sealed away such a long time ago that he had lost track of all time. He was pretty sure that his True Magic had even been reduced to magecraft. Really high quality magecraft, but magecraft nonetheless.

Hell, even his entertainment had been taken away about a hundred years after he had been locked away in this cave by that cruel woman. Some strange presence had been added to the world, keeping him from dancing about in the minds of mankind.

'So boooored...' The brown haired boy threw himself off the stone slab he had been lying on in a fit of childishness. The next ten minutes were spent furiously rolling back and forth along the pointed rocks just for the sake of the sensation.

And then he felt it.

A most familiar magical sensation, one that he had actually personally created, crossed his senses.

"THE BOY IS ALIVE! AGAIN!" Myrddin crowed. Leaping to his feet, the young boy swiftly rushed towards the rock wall that had kept him sealed away for that last few centuries. The wall didn't even last ten seconds when the Wizard activated all of his Magic Circuits to trigger his True Magic.

He wasn't going to miss his chance to warmly greet his chewtoy again!

Several scientists across nuclear facilities in the United Kingdom simultaneously went into apopletic fits when they detected their overall levels of energy dramatically dip. At around the same time, an equal amount of geologists in seismic stations across the same country collectively flipped their shit when a mountainside in Wales suddenly was shattered from the inside out.

For Myrddin, this was a Monday.

And half a world away...

A redhaired teenager summoned the King of Knights just as his own life had been about to be ended.

"...I ask of you, are you my Master?" Arturia Pendragon, once again having thrown herself into the Holy Grail War as Servant Saber, gazed upon the redhaired man lying on his rear. He simply stared at her as if enraptured by her mere presence with bright sherry eyes.

Something deep within her stirred as her emerald eyes met his.

"You're...really a knight? From the twelth century?" Shirou Emiya blurted, having somehow worked out of his state of wonder to just simply stare at the young girl in shock. How had such a slip of a girl blown away the monster that had hunted him down to his tool shed?

Saber thought the question was oddly specific, but her instincts - honed from a lifetime of battle – blared that a deadly enemy was approaching. Trusting in the faint connection she felt between herself and the teenager, Saber turned her back on the man and threw herself outside to do battle with her new foe.

'Hoo? What's this then?' Lancer, a blue haired man dressed in a skin tight bodysuit with striking red eyes, thought as he eyed the blur that shot out of the tool shed. The streak of blue and silver took on the appearance of a green eyed blonde in an armored dress. 'Saber?'

He remembered the speed she had used against him. Without another word, he threw himself at her with all of his speed.

Saber answered Lancer's charge by summoning Excalibur to her side. The blade appeared in her hands in an concealing burst of wind as it hide the weapon's identity from her enemy.

'Good to see I'll finally get a good fight out of this!' Lancer grinned once his crimson spear smashed into the Saber's weapon.

The moonlight vanished above as their weapons clashed. With each pass, more and more sparks of light were born. The metal of the weapons rang loud and clear in the night with the intense force the girl and man were bringing to bear against one another.

Lancer's excitement grew even higher as he found himself genuinely driven back by the petite girl.

Shirou gazed upon the battle in shock. The tide visibly turned on the blue haired monster that had been intending to kill him as both of the figures danced across his yard before him. No matter what strength the spear wielder brought to bear, the petite blonde was a step ahead of him as she parried his strikes.

"Guh!" Lancer grunted as Saber smashed her invisible weapon into his spear. Each of her strikes unleasehd a terrible amount of magical energy in their wake, tangible and deadly, as she brought all of her strength to bear against him.

With each of the blows, Lancer grew more and more furious with Saber.

"Coward!" The blue haired man finally had enough. Lancer flung himself backwards, hoping he had managed to move out of Saber's range with his retreat. "What are you trying to do by hiding your weapon!" Lancer shouted at Saber, face red from his anger.

Saber merely kept a cool expression on her face and charged at Lancer again.

The uncertainy of the range of Saber's weapon kept Lancer from accurately measuring the swordswoman's attacks.

In order to even keep pace with Saber, Lancer focused intently on his spear work. His striking speed went up in direct proportion to the amount his foot speed decreased as he met Saber head on.

For a while, Shirou almost thought that was it. The defensive position that the blue haired man had taken up was getting beaten down ruthlessly by a storm of blows unleashed by Saber.

Saber wound up for a final strike – full of might and killing intent as she swung.

'...gotcha!' Lancer thought, having weathered the attacks to get a feel for the general proportions of Saber's weapon.

"Don't underestimate me!" Lancer took advantage of the opening presented by Saber. His figure simply vanished before her eyes as he used all of his speed to to dodge.

The air cracked as wind rushed in to fill in the void where he had been standing.

Saber staggered, but completed her blow as she sunk her invisible sword into the ground. The earth erupted around her with the strength of her attack. Several smaller pieces of debris were sent fluttering about her body and blocking her vision briefly.

Shirou saw his would be killer gracefully land several meters away from Saber. Lancer had a wolfish grin on his feet as he instantly reversed direction and bounded towards the blonde with his crimson spear raised for a death blow as he gave it his all.

'Saber...!' A warning bubbled up to Shirou's mouth, but it died in his throat as Saber instantly turned her entire body into a brutal motion as she swung her weapon to try and bissect Lancer.

'Crap!' Lancer's eyes widened as he tried to dodge.

A metallic screech echoed throughout the yard as the blue haired man somehow managed to raise his weapon in time. Both of the killing blows were canceled as Lancer was merely blown away from Saber.

'Damn, I missed.' Both warriors thought simultaneously, wishing they had managed to land that killing blow.

Lancer gently landed on his feet after being driven back. Saber merely raised her sword. The dirt clinging to its invisible surface flicked off in chunks.

"What's wrong, Lancer? It would not do your name credit if you just stand there. If you will not come, I can." Saber stared at the blue haired man. He silently returned her stare as he steadied himself into an attack stance.

Unlike the sharp, hungry smile he had been wearing all fight, Lancer's expression was now stony.

"You're going to come and die? I don't mind, but let me ask you this first: Your Noble Phantasm is a sword, right?" Lancer asked with a pointed glare, trying to accomplish the distasteful goal his false Master had been sending him around to accomplish.

"Who knows?" A hint of an arrogant smirk, learned from seeing it be used too much on her, crossed Saber's face. "It might be a battle axe or it might be a spear." Her emerald eyes glitter a bit. "It might even be a bow, Lancer."

'What a mouth on that lass.' Lancer's own stony expression faded away to a haughty grin.

"Keep talking, Saber." Lancer replied as he pointed the tip of his spear down towards the ground. His red eyes shone to match Saber's own.

'What is he doing?' Saber wondered.

Shirou, having experienced an attack after Lancer took that stance, recognized the threat of it more than anyone else. "Sa-!" His throat clamped shut as a quick flicker of Lancer's eyes in his direction and an intense burst of killing intent swept past Shirou.

"I have to ask since this is our first meeting...do you want to call it even?"

Saber was so stunned she could only gaze at him in surprise.

"...your Master is having a bit of a senile moment, I see." Lancer smirked over at Shirou, who was visibly glaring at him. "Mine is a coward. I think it'd be in both of our best interests to hold off until we're prepared." Lancer hopefully offered. If he could end it here, his geas from the Command Spell would break and he'd be able to give it his all against the petite knight before him.

A silver star appeared high in the sky.

Unfortunately, Lancer could already see the anger bubbling behind Saber's emerald eyes.

'Damn. Another one thinks I'm a coward.' Lancer thought, feeling a pang in his heart and fire in his belly from the actions that Kotomine were causing him to go through.

"I refuse. You will fall here, Lancer." Saber growled, feeling offended at the mere thought of backing away from a duel.

"I see." Lancer sighed, but quickly put on a disinterested airs. "Geez, all I wanted to do was check things out, you know? I didn't want to stay long once a Servant came out." So wrapping himself in the little bit of pride he had left after yet another failure – Lancer went ahead and lowered his stance. The air warped as magical power was swiftly drawn to his spear, Gae Bolg.

The air chilled with the removal of magical energy, which swirled around Lancer's spear like a whirlpool.

Saber readied herself, glaring at her opponent as she prepared herself for the Noble Phantasm that Lancer was about to bring to bear.

"...See ya. I'll take that heart of yours!" Lancer shouted as he jumped at Saber.

Only Shirou had enough time, seperate from the fight as he was, to gaze up as a new light source joined the moon in illuminating his backyard. His sherry eyes goggled as a silver streak of light, bleeding off more magical energy than a thousand of him could use in a year, came down in a collision course for the two warriors.

The back of his left hand furiously itched as he gazed up at the descending comet. Shirou's next words erupted out of his mouth on a level just beneath his consciousness. "_**Soul Resonance!**__"_ One of the three Command Spells, burned onto the skin of his hand, was consumed as a brilliant flash of golden light erupted from the depths of his soul.

A blast of crimson flames erupted out of Saber, shocking the knight out of her defensive stance as she stumbled backwards as Lancer thrusted his spear towards the ground. Words began to form on his lips, but he was interrupted as a smaller sphere of golden land slammed into Saber's back from behind, forming gold and silver wings of light.

Which allowed her to dodge just as the silver streak came crashing down onto the complex like the fist of god.

Rin Tohsaka gaped as she and her Archer, a particularly smug dark skinned man with white hair, arrived at the glassed out, cratered remains of the Emiya home. Rin simply collapsed on her knees, eyes empty as she stared at the remains of the home of...

Sakura's crush?

A decent guy at school?

Maybe, but...

He was...he was her...

"Wow. The Hound of Ulster just didn't take any chances this time, did he?" Archer's words were the straw that broke Rin's back.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Rin screeched at Archer, sick and tired of his attitude at this moment. "Someone's dead because of us!" She knew that she was being ridiculous from the moment that Archer's gray eyes turned on her.

"Yes, and that's because he witnessed the battles, Master." Archer casually replied. "I'm sorry, but that's just the way it goes..."

But she just didn't give a damn.

Rin's vision briefly began to turn red at the edges as she desperately tried from making another stupid mistake. She wouldn't waste another Command Spell, despite the ever growing urge to order Archer to go and throw himself off a bridge.

Archer, knowing better than to say anything more, merely wondered what had happened in this incarnation of the Grail War. As far as his records had told him, Cu Chulainn had never actually needed to use his thrown version of Gae Bolg here...

The white haired man walked away from the quietly mourning Rin to poke around the glassed out remains of his home. A brief stab of remorse flittered across his mind as he considered just how overwhelmingly overpowered his past self must have been. He wondered if he had even been able to register his own death before it hit him?

Archer sighed, and in that moment, he spotted a collection of rocks and debris towards where the shed used to be. Curious, he made his way over towards the pile and reached for it. However, at the last moment he felt doom descend upon him.

"Incubus Chop!"

And with that, Archer was lost as a small boy erupted from beneath the bundle of debris and smashed the Heroic Spirit in the head with a glowing knife hand strike. When Archer collapsed to the ground unconscious, the boy proudly crossed his arms in front of his chest and nodded to himself.

Behind him, sheathed in a protective dome of energy shaped like a pair of white wings, rested Saber. In her hands, a shining blade with a golden pommel rested. The copy that had been granted to her by the Holy Grail War had been banished away in the presence of the original sword.

"Now, then...what to do with you?" Myrddin wondered, stroking his smooth chin as he gazed at the unconscious man at his feet.

…

Rin Tohsaka eventually came out of her daze to the sight of a beautiful blonde haired woman with bright green eyes. The woman, resplendid in a blue and white dress, was kneeling in front of Rin. Despite herself, Rin instantly felt infatuation for the other woman.

The blonde said something.

"Wha...?" Rin mumbled, confused and trying her best to fight down a blush.

"I said: Are you Rin Tohsaka?" The woman repeated. Her expression looked a bit annoyed.

"Y-yes?"

"Ah, good. My Master, Shirou Emiya, wants me to protect you." The woman helped Rin to her feet. "Until we can reverse what happened to him."

Behind the blonde, Rin could see a small boy in filthy rags playing with a paired set of black and white swords with a yin yang pattern.

"Wait...Shirou?" Rin screamed as she took the blonde's hands in her own. The blonde looked vaguely uncomfortable with the attention, but she nodded.

"Yes...uhm..." The woman paused for time. "You see, my name is Saber and well... my mentor enchanted a sword of mine a long time ago to prevent it from being shattered, and..."

Saber uneasily glanced back to the yard. Rin followed her gaze as well to see a twelve year old boy in dirty rags was weaving a set of swords. One was pitch black and about half his size with red vein like markings and the other one was pure white with a golden pommel.

"Itsortofgotsentient." Saber mumbled quickly.

"What..."

"It become sentient. And annoying. It somehow wound up inside your friend, so for the time being..."

"He is the bone of her sword!" The boy cheered, holding up the white sword happily.

Saber winced. "Must you put it that way?"

Rin blinked.

Blinked again.

"What."

Saber sheepishly toed at the ground. "It shouldn't take long to fix him..."

"I'm already investigating how to fix him back!" The boy announced happily.

"YOU LIAR! YOU WERE JUST PLAYING A PRANK ON THAT INNOCENT MAN!" Saber turned and roared at the boy, who yelped and laughed as he raced to the other side of the glassed yard.

"I never realized how much I missed you until now, Arthur!"

"Who's...?" Rin's mind caught onto the prank line. "Wait, where's Archer?" She glanced around the yard.

"Uhm...Myrddin may have broken your Servant too." A beat. "My most sincere apologies."

'Check please.' Rin woozily swayed on her feet.

"Ah...! Rin! Don't pass out no-...w." Saber sighed as she caught the dark haired girl as she swooned. Moments later, the white sword had managed to pry itself out of Myrddin's hand and floated over towards Saber.

It lightly patted her shoulder with its pommel.

"...thank you, Master." Saber sniffled. Why didn't that damn sword stay lost at the end of the last Grail War?

* * *

><p>AN: This story is named "I Am The Bone Of My Legend'. It's a goofy title for a goofy idea. Kiritsugu and Irisviel used Soul Eater's Excalibur as the item to summon Arturia back in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Amongst its hax powers, it grants healing in this idea (combining Avalon and Excalibur). So it goes into Shirou, who can turn sword for Arturia. I wanted to use my Myrddin idea here again, so he shows up as the one who kicks off all the weirdness with his magic.

I should have done this as Tsukihime instead...


	4. Chapter 4

Angel Notes is the property of Type-Moon. Sekirei is the property of Sakurako Gokurakuin.

"Climax"

* * *

><p><strong>TOKYO TRIBUNAL, March 15th, 2989<strong>

**Strange Meteor Spotted Streaking Through The Skies**

"_It just appeared out of nowhere. None of our equipment registered its arrival."_

Story by Miyuki Takamachi.

After four months our government finally decides to respond to the sky falling on our heads! On 07/10/2989, a team of independent researchs were given permission to explore the newly formed land of Kamikura Island.

This mysterious Eden surfaced in the wake of the meteor shower that had sent many of our military scrambling for the big red button. 'Somehow' the shower hadn't been detected by anyone important until it was practically soaring down our collective noses!

The head of this team, Minaka Hiroto and Takami Sahashi will be leading an team composed of the best and brightest minds in the scientific field. Their goal? To try and discover how this new land was able to quickly develop plant growth on its surface.

"If we can narrow down the elements in the rock, we may be able to try and grow further samples in the lab." Minaka went on record. "This could help humanity. We might finally be able to reverse the damage that was brought about at the turn of the millenium."

The incident in question, otherwise known as the South America Massacre, was when Nuclear Missiles were unleashed from the rogue country of...

…

"You shouldn't believe everything you read in the papers." Minaka spoke up behind her. He was wearing his full environmental suit.

Takami Sahashi glanced back at the man. "Government conspiracy again?" She asked dryly. Her thumb flicked off her wrist mounted computer, shutting off the hologram.

"Of course. I know what really went on there, after all." He arrogantly smiled.

"Just because we've discovered this doesn't mean that those rumors about an alien in South America were true either." Takami rolled her eyes as she stepped past the man. The two glanced briefly off to the side, seeing the red sea and crystal clear skies rolling up against the island.

"Then why doesn't anyone ever let the scientific community enter? You've seen those satellite images too!"

Minaka's statement made Takami squirm a bit uncomfortably. The images of the expanding crystal valley in South America had remained in the back of her mind ever since they had discovered this island a year ago.

Before long, both of the humans turned away from walking along the cliffsides and into the lush forests beyond. At times, Takami was tempted to remove the plastic suit around her head to breath in the scent of the beautiful flowers, but her romanticism was kept at bay by the steady beep of her suit's purification system.

Despite the skies looking so beautiful, the air itself had been turned foul long, long ago.

Both of the scientists approached a grand lake with a large, exterrestial ship in the center. Several tents were set up around the ship within a protective dome. Minaka casually swiped his card through an electronic reader before they were allowed back in.

Takami secured the samples she had been carrying in her arms within one of the vacuum sealed crates along the wall of the small decontamination chamber between the outside and the dome itself. Once Minaka saw that she was ready, he swiped the card one more time before they were both cleansed of the Grain in the outside.

* * *

><p>"Takami, Minaka, I need to talk to you two about the children." Miya called out to the two humans as she approached Minaka and Takami in her simple blouse and pants. Even within the dome, everyone with the exception of the purple haired woman before them was still clad in their hazmat suits.<p>

The sight of Miya wandering around so openly had sparked a bit of jealousy from the humans at first, but they had grown used to it after the last year here.

"I'm sorry, but I need to study these samples..." Takami began. The woman in front of her narrowed her eyes a little, but the human was saved by Minaka.

"I'd love to see them!" The man boomed as he walked up to Miya and threw an arm around her shoulder. He spun her so she was facing away from Takami. In that moment, he gave the scientist a gesture to get moving.

"Uhm...yes, sir." Miya mumbled, surprised as the two of them began to walk away.

"You shouldn't antagonize her." The amused voice of Takehito Asama spoke up behind Takami. The gray haired man offered the woman a bright grin as he walked up to her, wild hair kept contained in his suit's helmet.

"Hmph. I can't just drop everything at the moment." Takami protested.

Takehito's eyes glittered. "You certainly do that enough when Minaka wants to go out on walks though..oof!" He groaned as he bent around Takami's fist, which she had driven into his gut. "That's not right." He wheezed.

"He follows **me**. Not the other way around!" Takami snapped as she turned and marched off.

Her ears burned as she heard Takehito's chuckles behind her.

* * *

><p>"It's spreading again..." Brigadier General Johnson muttered angrily as he stepped away from the display before him. The crystals that the satellites were showing had expanded more into the sea.<p>

His aide glanced at his boss as he paced across the interior of the mobile base. Everyone inside the room were clad in their environmental suits as well as they eyed the steaming general.

"We have the missile platforms ready, sir." The general's aide spoke up. "We can also send...them to break off the crystal."

The general paused. "No..." He shook his head. "I'd rather not have to rely on the A-rays." The thought of unleashing that much power just to shear off the sheddings of that damn zombie spider annoyed him to no end.

"Call for the Church's agent."

…

The time of magi was over.

The Art was only a pale shadow of what it had formerly been.

The elderly priest gazed out into the forest of crystal. They were currently stationed along the coast line of what had been once known as Brazil. His seniors in the Church had unleashed a devastating weapon in this land to pacify the raging demon that had brought ruin to this continent, but in doing so they had been forced to reveal the existence of magic to too many governments.

The truth had been concealed, but once unleashed...

The elderly man pressed his wrinkled forehead up against the terminal showing him the outside world.

"Father." An electronic buzz made the elderly man glance in the direction of the intercom. A screen above the speaker showed a soldier clad in an environmental suit waiting outside of his vacuum sealed room. "The General wishes for you to come. Bring Black Barrel."

"I understand." The elderly man replied. He turned to go and suit up. The man had been raised in the Church in a sterile environment to best keep the amount of Grain in their systems low.

The Lance of Longinus would not work for those that had been corrupted by sin. Even in the environmental suit, the priest could feel his skin burn the longer he was exposed to the air outside of this room.

Still, he and the Church would continue to protect the world from the inhuman.

...

Why was the age of science being stymied by ancient traditions?

The scientist glared as Father Conti stepped past her.

The priest held the only weapon that remained consistently effective against the terraforming nature of the crystalline arachnid, and he couldn't even touch it for longer than five minutes every six months. She loathed the fact that the weapon was only kept away from her team due to its nature as a holy relic of the church.

A quick viewing of the security film of the priest had sickened her when the man had begun to conduct hour long prayers on the weapon. What sort of foolishness was that? Those antiquated methods of belief had gone by the wayside more than five hundred years ago.

Even their greatest weapons – the Six Sisters, had mastered what those ignorant fools had called 'True Magic' to great lengths.

"Report." General Johnson's curt voice caused the scientist to glance back to her terminal.

"Crystal Valley has receded once again." She couldn't hide the trace of bitterness in her voice. "Target is showing signs of having returned to stasis once again."

"Good." The General nodded.

* * *

><p>"A-are you sure we should do this, Takehito?" Miya sounded unsure as she followed the suit clad man out into the forest at night. Her long hair blew around her shoulders<p>

"Sure I'm sure." Tatehito grinned over at Miya. "You need to stretch out your wings sometimes. Just watching over the kids all day can be boring, right?"

"Well..."

The man quickly grasped the woman's hand in his.

"Tak..." Miya started as he tightened his hold on her hand. They simply stared at each other for a few moments. "...okay." She put aside her duties for just a brief moment.

Tatehito softly smiled at her and led her off into the forest.

* * *

><p><strong>TOKYO TRIBUNAL, March 15th, 2995<strong>

**Mid Bio Informatics Formed, Patents Pending**

In a surprising manuever in this recession, independent firm, Mid Bio Informatics (hereby known as MBI) have appeared in the market wth a direct challenge to the A-Ray program that the United Nations have been using to replace field soldiers in long term deployments.

"We're confident that our products can meet or exceed the abilities of any of the weapons currently in stock." MBI's chairperson, Minaka Hiroto, was quoted as boasting. "In fact, I'm so sure of our products that I'll go as far as to say that they're S-Rays. Superior in every way! Ahahaha!"

So far, of all the patents officially filed, most of them have been medical technologies geared towards improving the purification units in environmental suits and in city wide systems. Also included are several new forms of medication to flush out Grain from the system.

Mid Bio Informatics are based around the city of Tokyo.

…

"Minaka..." General Johnson growled at the white haired man staring at him smuggly from the other end of a view screen. "The last thing we want to do is stir dissent amongst the people!"

"Maybe I wanted to do that." Minaka replied. "What better way to get a test of my S-Rays against the A-Rays?"

The general slammed his fists on the table. "You're only where you are because the U.N. gave you permission to explore that island!" He snarled.

Minaka's gaze went cold. "I'm here because I worked hard." A cold smile crossed his lips. "You'd best remember that too, General."

'This man has gone insane, hasn't he?' Johnson thought. 'Too much exposure to Grain while on that island must have fried his brain.'

"If there isn't going to be anything else..." Minaka drawled.

"Fine, go ahead." The general waved his headache and the man away. As soon as the screen went away, he sighed as he saw an incoming call on the display from his superiors.

'Great...'

The news that he received would go on to sour the rest of his month.

…

Miya Asama hummed a tuneless song as she pulled out her and her husband's laundry from the drier. She loaded it into the hamper and sealed it up within a vacuum lock bag before she carried it out of the washing room. On her way out, she waved at several of the scientists. The suit clad men and women cheerfully returned her wave before they went back to their own business.

'It's a shame that they can't expose themselves to this air too much." The woman thought sadly. She gazed out at the dome around her people's ship and the shanty town that had been set up around it. 'Even with our ship's technology to aid them, we still haven't found a fool proof way of sealing the Grain completely out.'

"Big sis! Big sis!" A red haired little girl, no older than five, ran up to her, waving desperately for her attention. Like Miya, she wasn't clad in an environmental suit.

"What is it, Matsu?" Miya immediately dropped to her knees as she set her bag down so she could place her hands on Matsu's shoulders.

The redhead gasped for breath for a moment. "The soldiers! They're trying to get inside the ship!" She blurted out. Her words tightly clutched Miya's heart.

…

Tatehito screamed as the butt of a rifle slammed into him, sending him flying out of the way of the five soldiers as they began to stomp up the ramp to the spaceship. Two little girls and one boy trembled as they saw the older men approach them with cold looks in their eyes.

"What are you doing to them?" The researcher demanded.

The four girls screamed as a soldier grasped each of them, dragging them away from the ship as the last began to head towards the entrance.

"Nothing you need to be concerned about." One of the soldiers replied.

"I'm going to have to say no to that." Miya's voice cut through the chaos. Before the soldiers outside of the ship could bring their rifles to bear, Miya had torn past them. The woman was a blur as she slammed her fists into the soldiers, knocking them cleanly out before they could even react.

"Big sis!" The little girls cheered as they pulled themselves off the ground.

"There's still another one in there, Miya!" Takehito warned his wife.

She glanced at him with a smile. "Just take the girls to safety for me." With that, Miya descended into the interior of the ship.

Takehito quickly gathered Kazahana, Karasuba, and Mutsu before he rang the alarm.

…

"Tch. That alien already got past them?" The leader of the soldiers snarled as he finished stuffing the last frozen embryo within the cushioned metallic briefcase.

"Correct." He spun to face Miya, rifle ready. The city's alarms could be heard in the distance. "You're not getting anywhere now. The mercenaries that Minaka hired will run you down before long."

"Oh, I think I am going to be getting away." The soldier countered, grasping the handle of the briefcase. "Unless you want me to destroy your people." He gestured with his head along the wall of frozen embryos sealed behind glass.

Miya went pale as he moved his rifle towards them.

"Why... why are you doing this?" Miya angrily demanded.

"Nothing personal...but we're at war now." The man's expression softened a little. "The brass is going to need front line fighters like you if we're going to beat those traitors back." His expression hardened as he gripped the briefcase. "So...move. Or I'll destroy them."

Miya tensed, but the soldier opened fire. The Sekirei moved to protect the embryos and was struck in the shoulder and stomach.

The soldier immediately bolted for the exit as Miya collapsed in front of the embryos, but the second he stepped out a fountain of gore erupted out the back of his head as a sniper blasted the man as he exited the ship.

Scores of mercenaries along with Minaka and Takami rushed the ship. Takami wrenched the case from the soldier's grip while Minaka led the soldiers inside.

"Takami! Get the medics!" Minaka's voice boomed from inside the ship.

…

Several days later, the attack on Kamikura Island began in earnest.

…

The spaceship quaked and Takami nearly fell as another explosive shell slammed into the armored hull of the ship. MBI's forces retalliated to the attack with their own cannons, which the scientist could distantly hear even within the ship.

'Yes, I'm sure blowing the ship up and everyone in it is a wonderful way to get your hands on a weapon to fight off the A-Rays.' Takami thought with a dark scowl. The woman moved to the ship's medical room.

Her bitterness with the situation faded away as she glanced at softly snoring Takehito, who was practically leaning up against the glass tube they had stored Miya within. At the moment, the Sekirei was gently floating within a healing salve they had invented as the first set of products.

Takami remained quiet as she moved over to her computer in the back of the room. A few moments later, she began to access the plans that Minaka had set up for her before heading off to pressure Japan to provide them aid.

'A proposal to grow Sekirei shocktroopers from samples of the embryos...' Takami chewed her lip.

Another round of thudding impacts on the ship's hull made the decision for her.

'I'm sorry, Miya.' The woman glanced up at the serenely floating woman. 'It's for the good of your people.'

…

War was nothing to a game for the Sisters...

Even as they floated high above their forces, it looked like two collections of ants pushing up against each other. Occasionally, their all encompassing vision was broken up by a scattering of explosions, but it was nothing they weren't able to gaze past.

"_How pathetic._"

Four of the Six were in agreement with the thought.

One was neutral.

One was opposed.

"_The prophecy states a human is the only one that may wield the Lance of Longinus against the oncoming threat..._"

The opposing voice prompted.

"_The prophecy also stated that the threat was called due to the human's actions. Dissension will be noted in the records, but will not affect the upcoming plan._"

Three of the Six were in agreement.

Two were opposed.

One abstained.

"_The A-Rays shall cleanse the Earth of their filth. Once they are gone, the monsters will return from whence they came." _

…

Damn them! Damn them all!

This was supposed to have been an era of science and those fools have thrown it all away!

The scientist prowled through the base outside of the crystal forest. In her raging mind, she could only blame the warmongers and ignorant for the A-Rays' uprising. The screams of the dying could be heard as she raced to her goal.

Well, there was one thing she'd do before she abandoned these worthless people to their fates.

The scientist pressed on the buzzer for the priest's room with an innocent expression on her face.

"I'm coming!" Father Conti harriedly spoke up as the door swung open. "Have the A-Rays attempted to breach the cordon to the demon?" The elderly man worriedly asked her, clad within his environmental suit.

As always, the Black Barrel lingered in his arms.

The scientist resisted the urge to stare at the weapon longingly as she nodded at the priest. "We need you to join the fighting." The weight of her sidearm hung at her side reassuringly.

Father Conti's face twisted in a hateful snarl. "We should have destroyed those monsters long ago. Let's go and deliver God's judgement to them."

"Of course." The scientist smiled. "Let's kill the ignorant masses."

…

By the end of the week, she was on her way to Shin Tokyo. She knew that she would be welcomed by others like her there.

Especially when she presented the piece of the crystalline arcahnid and the Black Barrel to them.

* * *

><p><strong>SHIN TOKYO TRIBUNAL<strong>

**Mid Bio Informatics Triumphant Over Invasion Forces**

By Etsuko Kikuchi, Editor.

For the protection of the public, it has been determined by the Japanese government that the nation is to enter a state of lock down. It is advised that any citizens planning on leaving the country to not do so as there will be restrictions on passenger flights within a month. The Japanese Self Defense Force will also be turning back any passenger ships after the deadlines.

…

Minaka glanced over the skyline of Shin Tokyo. The dome around the city completely sealed it off from Grain and the filters let clean air into the city. Such a luxury drew caused the U.N. to pay them a king's ransom for the same technology even as they occasionally attempted to break them economically.

His company scoffed at their attempts, and its Disciplinary Squad, staffed full of loyal Sekirei kept industrial spies from breaking into the country. As far as the man cared, he'd let the A-Rays and U.N. kill each other whihe he ruled over Japan.

Still, the U.N.'s attempts at destroying the A-Ray were escalating...

He would have to see if there was anything he could do to keep his Sekirei a step above the two forces. The Six Sisters and the U.N.'s new weapon – the Ether Liners, were incredibly worrisome for the chairman of MBI.

Perhaps he might have a use for the shard of that deceased alien after all.

…

A sharp knock on the front door of Minato Sahashi's apartment began his day.

"Alright! I'm up! Hold up!" Minato called out. The dark haired teenager called. He struggled to put on his t-shirt while gnawing on a piece of toast. Succeeding in neither, he annoyedly threw open the front door. "God, can't you take it easy, Godo?"

The sardonic looking man, only a year older than Minato, merely shrugged. His black ponytail bobbed behind him as he shifted the long rifle on his shoulder. "Hey, we got a set schedule, kid." He dismissively replied.

Minato's eyebrow twitched. He once again wondered what was so important about his mom that he and Yukari had a bodyguard.

Speaking of which...

"Big brother!"

Godo calmly stepped backwards and to the side to allow Yukari past him.

"Oh god!" Minato yelped as he was tackled back into his apartment

"Haaah! I missed you so much!" Yukari snuggled into his chest.

"We saw each other **yesterday**!"

"I **know**!" Yukari looked agonized.

Godo reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. When he saw Minato look up at him desperately, he blinked.

"Want one?" He wondered. The man wasn't sure why Minato let out that cry of agony, though.


	5. Chapter 5

Tentative title: "Battles Without Danmaku or Logic."

'Reimu...'

The dark haired girl floated in darkness. Her expression was that of peace and serenity as her body, slim as it barely was budding into womanhood, moved across an endless void.

'Reimu Hakurei...'

Within this void, all worries drifted away. Thoughts of where to get her next meal or having to attend to her duties just weren't important right now.

'It's time for you to serve the world...'

The darkness parted. Countless eyes, sharp and judging, opened to gaze upon the girl. The feel of their gazes made the calm girl gasp and come aware.

* * *

><p>"Miss Hakurei, wake up!" The booming voice of Keine Kamishirasawa jerked Reimu back to the land of the conscious. Harsh light filled her eyes, illuminating the packed classroom that Keine ran out of her home. The purple haired schoolgirl winced as she saw all the eager looks that were being directed towards her – the jerks were all waiting on Keine to start chewing Reimu's head off.<p>

The young schoolteacher, who had recently been promoted to the position of town Guardian due to the death of her mother, looked incredibly intimidating at the moment. Even her hat – that boxy, multilayered, and feathered blue pagoda of hers – looked frightening as the woman loomed over the fourteen year old.

"Rika drugged me, I swear!" Reimu immediately tried to deflect the scary look away from herself. "She said she'd give me something so I could rest better!"

"Hey! You said you wouldn't take it until you were back at the shrine!" Rika turned around from her seat in the front of the class to scowl at Reimu. Her forehead scrunched down towards her glasses in displeasure as she shook her fist at Reimu. "My clinical research is ruined!"

Around them, several children chortled openly at the Reimu's weak attempt at getting Rika Asakura - the second of the school's two weirdos, in trouble with the blue haired teacher.

"Both of you, buckets!" Keine ordered, pointing towards the two metal buckets. Both girls groaned, but did as instructed. After filling up them up with a spigot in the back of the classroom, Reimu and Rika plodded out of the classroom to the muted murmurings of their classmates.

'You're going to have to shape up soon, Reimu...' Keine forlornly thought as she gazed at Reimu's stiff back as she left the classroom. With a sigh of annoyance, she smoothed down her dress, turned towards the other children, and offered them a shaky smile before she continued teaching classes for the day.

Rika and Reimu both stood out towards the middle of the yard that served as the playground to the school. The two of them were almost matching mirrors of once another with their long purple hair and eyes. However, subtle differences were present in both. Their outfits were the only thing that set them apart from each from a casual glance. Once they were in the middle of the schoolyard, they both silently stood and gazed out towards the streets of the Human Village just on the other end of the yard.

"Smooth move, idiot!" Rika shouted at Reimu. Her expression, which looked perpetually gloomy to Reimu, worsened as she was forced to hold up two metal buckets with her arms. A bit of water splashed her pinkish white dress shirt and long slacks.

"What? Don't you like western stuff?" Reimu innocently questioned. She casually shifted, long red skirt swaying as she moved in place. Unlike Rika, she patiently held up her own buckets. It wasn't worth it to splash her outfit – a white blouse and red vest.

"While I like the clothes and some of their ideas," Rika began, shaking the buckets slightly at Reimu's direction, "the Outsiders' tortures are peerless!"

Reimu snorted. "Yeah, yeah." She distractedly mumbled.

Rika, having noticed Reimu's odd hesitance, quirked her head. "What's wrong?" She awkwardly lifted her left foot and lightly bumped it against Reimu's right leg. "Is it that dream again?"

"Yeah..."

Rika offered Reimu a hesitant smile. "Well, it can't be that bad, right? Aren't the Hakurei maidens supposed to be the best at their job?"

"Good enough to get themselves killed." Reimu muttered. Her hooded eyes gazed out on the streets, where countless adults were preparing for the festival of succession. "Not that it matters to them."

"That's not fair to Miss Kamishirasawa."

Reimu grimaced.

Large splashes of fire began to appear in the horizon. Once they rose high enough, they scattered about like rose petals in the winds. The sight was so enchanting that both of the girls' eyes were immediately drawn to the display up in the sky.

The adults that had been walking out in front of the school paused as well. Occasionally one of them would point up at the sky as well.

"Reimu, isn't that the direction of the shrine...?" Rika trailed off. Both girl's eyes widened as they heard a shout of surprise behind them. They dropped their buckets and spun to face the loud clamor that had gone up from their classroom.

Children raced screaming away from the building. Nipping at their heels were large, round white lumps that were hovering in the air after them. The ghosts, for lack of a better term, possessed comically large and expressive eyes and massive mouths. Their long tongues, sinuous and moist, lashed out at their backs like whips.

It was the most ridiculous things that Rika or Reimu had ever seen.

One of the walls of the school exploded into small splinters as a trio of those things were launched away in pieces out into the yard by Keine. The school teacher herself exited out of the hole she had created in the school building moments later. She looked furious as a trio of paper scrolls, writhing about her body like snakes, hovered above her. A set of magatama, deep blue gemstones, rested along her neck. Her hands were wielding a yellow and green sword and grasping a small round mirror with a red and gold back.

The ghosts immediately broke their attack off. Their expressions were fearful as they gazed on the mirror that Keine was now pointing in their direction. It was fair to say they didn't notice that they were heading straight at Reimu and Rika.

Both girls locked up in shock for a few moments, but Reimu grasped Rika around the shoulders. With an incredibly display of force, she jumped three feet to the right with her friend in her arms. The girls tumbled in mid-air for a few moments before Reimu righted them and let them land smoothly on the yard.

"Hwah!" Keine's mirror caught the rays of the sun, magnified them, and sent them in a pulse of screaming crimson light. The grass beneath the beam ignited with flame as it slammed into them. The ghosts let out a wail as their bodies vanished within the stream of energy before it cut off.

"Are you two alright?" Keine called out towards the two girls as she casually approached.

Rika shook slightly, pale and gaze vaguely traumatized as she gave her teacher an astonished look.

"What the hell, Miss Keine?" Reimu blurted, face red with slight indignation as she cradled Rika in her arms. "You nearly killed us with that spell!"

Keine shook her head. "No, it's a banishing. It would not have hurt either of you." Her gaze narrowed slightly at Reimu. The girl nervously gulped at the chiding look in Keine's eyes. "If **someone** paid attention to me after school, she'd know that."

"Ehee..." Reimu winced.

Moments later, another flash of flame erupted high in the skies above the shrine again. Seconds later, more of the ghosts immediately appeared around the trio. They let out deranged giggles as they attempted to charge on the three, but a flash of light from the magatama formed a dome of energy that shoved them away.

"Reimu! Get the Hakurei Orb!" Keine demanded as one of the scrolls wrapped around the school teacher fluttered and twitched before moving towards Reimu.

"Wait! I'm not ready!"

Rika let out a shriek of surprise. "Reimu, I'm scared!" She yelped as she tightened her hold around the other girl's shoulders. The stunned girl could only hold onto Rika as more of the ghosts appeared and began to head in the direction of the Human Village.

The ghosts around the barrier let out peals of laughter. Energy gathered within their mouths and they launched it into the dome, pelting it with explosive force. Reimu's eyes widened as she saw the way that Keine winced and twitched as each sphere of energy smashed into the protective shield.

"We don't have anymore time!" Keine coldly replied. Internally, she felt her insides curdle at the look of fear on Reimu's face.

Reimu's decision was made for her when another bolt of flame rose high over the shrine. The girl let go of Rika and lashed out towards the scroll. The surface of the paper rippled like water, allowing Reimu to sink her arms up to its elbow within it. Seconds later, she felt cold metal roll into her hands.

With a grunt, Reimu pulled out the Hakurei Orb into her hands. The heavy sphere was colored in black and white in the pattern of a yin yang symbol. The teenager glanced over at Keine, who gave her a single nod.

"Protect Miss Asakura!" The school teacher's command came as the barrier around them dropped. Keine threw herself straight at one of the ghosts, and with a swing of her sword, launched small fragments of magic at the creature, banishing it as it tore into it.

The cold sphere in Reimu's hands didn't feel light at all. The sensation of pulsing warmth she was told she should be feeling in the spiritual artifact was nowhere to be felt. Reimu immediately turned towards the three ghosts that were charging towards her and Rika.

"Reimu!"

'Ah...fuck it. I'll worry about that later.' Reimu let the sphere drop and her leg pull back. The last Hakurei smashed her foot into the sphere. Like a cannon shot being fired, it tore straight into and through the closest ghost's face before smashing into the upper corner of a building and caving it in.

Both ghosts and Rika were briefly stunned as they stared at Reimu in shock.

"...what?" Reimu bluntly replied. "I was never good with my sutras."

* * *

><p>AN: An idea for attempting to bridge the PC-98 era Touhou to the Windows Era Touhou by following Reimu through the first games in the series to the transition point. I'll probably pick this one up once I'm done with my current fics first.


	6. Chapter 6

Hope.

There were as many as a thousand variations of that word amongst the varied languages, dead or otherwise, that Yuuno Scrya could recall off the top of his head. Twenty of them were also the word for despair as well.

They had been authorized to dig in this abandoned world, this graveyard that wasn't even acknowledged as an Unadministered World by the Bureau, because there was hope that what had started here could be undone here as well.

[Master, please do not get distracted.]

The sound of Raising Heart, his Intelligent Device and partner, drew him out of the lull that he had almost fallen into. "I'm sorry, Rai." He adjusted his goggles, lessening the pressure the straps were exerting on the sides of his head.

The young boy and his partner, a small red gemstone hanging around his neck, were gazing over several holographic screens. Displayed on them were several photographs taken by Raising Heart while they had begun digging at their new site.

[It is alright, Master.]

Yuuno leaned back into his seat, sighing as he glanced past the cluttering surrounding him and out the window in his office. More than fifty workers were currently combing the edges of a pit in the distance. Other mobile bases like his own were set up around the area randomly with search lights set up around the edges of the digging zone.

It made Yuuno's fingers twitch as he fought back the urge to go out and join the others in the dirt.

"Set an reminder for me to return in two hours." Yuuno gave into the urge to ignore his paperwork for now.

Raising Heart chimed in acknowledgment.

The blond eagerly left his cramped quarters/office and took in a greedy gulp of fresh air. Other rooms like his own were set up alongside his in a row, but he knew that they were empty – his team working at the moment.

The sunlight and fresh spring air caressed Yuuno as he made his way across grassy plains. Occasionally his foot would come across remains of concrete beneath thinner patches of grass, but Yuuno was used to it.

As he made his way up to the pit, one of his workers – one of the communications men - looked up and smiled at him.

"Ah, Mister Scrya, welcome back!" The slim, boisterous man grinned. "We thought we had lost you to the Friar's paperwork."

[I would have dug him out.] Raising Heart replied, taking the man's words at face value.

Yuuno laughed a bit. The boy was forced to look up at his Spotter. "That old codger hasn't drowned me yet. I've still got lots of years left in me, Julius." He replied with a smirk.

"Still, it's good to see you two are here." Julius gestured for Yuuno to draw near, showing him a projection of their progress. He pointed to a particular patch, illuminated by the holographic display. Several ID tags were clustered around it. "The underground shelter is heavily sealed. None of our devices can really make a dent in it."

"We can take care of that." Yuuno nodded authoritatively. He hadn't seen any obstacle that Raising Heart couldn't blast her way through. "Have you already done the analysis if the building itself will hold, though?"

"It'll be fine so long as you keep the blast focused." Julius replied. He glanced over to the gem around Yuuno's neck. "So no going all out this time, madam." He wagged a finger at the Intelligent Device.

[Acknowledged, sir!]

Yuuno laughed. He waved at Julius before floating over the edge of the pit and began to descend down

two miles of earth.

On his way down, Yuuno ran across several more of his men. His fellow clan members, several of the defensively weaker ones clad in more traditional protective suits, waved at him from where they were taking soil samples.

The passive field he had been maintaining all along began to react.

"Raising Heart, get ready." Yuuno commanded, lowering his goggles over his eyes. His barrier jacket – green tunic and silver breast plate flashed over his dusty shirt and shorts. With an application of a standard Bureau formula, the air around him began to be supercharged with mana, burning any germs near him.

They landed at the bottom of the pit. A shattered hallway stretched out before them, with thick vines stretching up and down the the area. The plants were discolored, splotchy purples and blacks in the plant material, but his workers had burnt through it long ago.

[Beginning scan for viral traces...]

Yuuno began to walk down the hallway, mindful of his surroundings as they passed by an ancient sign, long since faded to near illegibility. It had taken them a while to translate it, but they had more or less gotten an approximation of its meaning.

**Warning! Hazardous Materials up ahead. Only senior Blackwatch Agents allowed ahead on threat of court martial/death.**

* * *

><p>Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha is owned by Masaki Tsuzuki. Prototype is owned by Radical Entertainment. All additional references and parodies are owned by their respective companies.<p>

"Pandora"

* * *

><p>The Blackwatch Storage Facility's final barrier was a massive door, about twenty feet tall by ten feet in width, composed of various metals. From their scans, they had determined that a large underground warehouse which contained past this door and had held intact all these years.<p>

But getting to it was a problem.

Raising Heart, in its standard pink and gold staff form, unleashed a devastating and tightly focused beam of energy as Yuuno stood at the front of his diggers. The three members that were here with him were the ones that could consistently maintain the highest levels of defensive barriers and environmental fields – truly the only ones besides Yuuno that had made it to this final destination.

About a half mile behind them, the five Scrya diggers could distantly feel the other members of their team, keeping the tunnel itself reinforced with barriers as the quartet focused their Device's fire on the massive iron door before them.

'Master Yuuno, it is time.' At the mental prodding of Raising Heart, Yuuno immediately cut off the beam of mana he was using to drill. The other three diggers with Yuuno glanced up, following Yuuno's lead.

"Is something wrong, Yuuno?" Marina, the only woman in this group, spoke up. The other two, brothers that Yuuno had gone on with on several other digs, merely leaned up against their own Storage Devices.

"Do you want to take a break?" The younger of the two softly asked.

Yuuno had an amused look on his face. "No, I actually was playing hookey from my paperwork for a bit." His answer caused the older of the brothers to break out in a hearty laugh. He slung his Storage Device, a large drill tipped pole arm, on his shoulder.

"I approve!"

Marina gave the man a scowl, wiping at her face with her gray – formerly white gloves. "You need to stop encouraging him! We're supposed to be setting better examples for Yuuno and Simon."

"His soul will shrivel up and die if he has to deal with that fat cow from the Church." The older teenager insisted.

"There's rules for a reason. Our Guild has to..."

The two younger members of the digging screw looked bemused as another grudge match began in front of them. Simon glanced over at Yuuno with a faint smile and shrug. "They'll be at it for a while. Why don't you head out? I'll get them back on task once they get it out of their system."

"Alright, then." Yuuno nodded. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."

Simon smiled and opened his mouth to speak.

The earth above them shook. Stray pebbles ominously dropped down from the earth above to clatter down around them.

The four of them held their breath.

'Mister Scrya!' Julius's panicked voice slammed into their minds. The distance and barriers between them and the spotter above caused the telepathic transmission to warble and break into white noise. 'We're under atta-'

A loud roar screamed down the direction of their exit.

Then deathly silence.

'Julius...?' Yuuno tentatively probed at the mental connection. There was no response.

"...what happened?" The older male amongst them questioned. "I'm not getting any responses from my spotter."

The other two nodded, looking fearfully at Yuuno.

That's when the rumbling began. The tunnel above their heads began to drop larger pieces of stone and clods of dirt on their heads. Yuuno could feel the barriers begin to fail as the earth above them almost rolled like a wave.

"Take down this door!" Yuuno snapped, turning Raising Heart on the door. "Raising Heart, full power!"

[Acknowledged.]

A searing blast of mana erupted from the crimson gem at the tip of Raising Heart, joined by the other three with him. Yuuno could hear a jumble of confused thoughts pass between his fellow diggers, but they all knew that if they were dead if they didn't get through this door.

The barricade began to glow red hot as a wave of earth began to cascade down the hallway behind them.

"Come on, come on, come on!" Yuuno begged, the four of them drawing as much mana from their linker cores as they could without weakening their shields. The frame around the massive door trembled as their beams pierced a five foot tall hole in it and continued inwards.

His inner archaeologist wailed in agony as the distinct sound of destruction could be heard within, but his survival instincts bludgeoned it into silence.

"Go!" The leader of their group yelled as the four of them made a break for the opening.

Then the barrier over their heads finally gave way.

* * *

><p>A dark haired woman clad in a flowing purple dress and trailing black cloak, clasped onto her body with golden latches, coldly looked down upon the planet's surface from the bridge of her base. The surface of the land was being constantly hammered by a torrent of lightning from the Garden of Time as she kept the ship lurking within the Dimensional Sea.<p>

Precia Testarossa viciously smiled as she observed the archaeological site collapse, swallowed by the hole they themselves had blasted. She glanced at a hovering display next to her, which showed the scans of the site.

'To think they honestly thought they could hide a dig this important from me.' Precia scoffed at the cheek of the Bureau. 'Still, this was worth every penny.'

Beneath her, a magical circle, inscribed with the formula for the devastating lightning strikes shifted with a thought. The entire floor of the bridge lit up as her commands flowed into the hundreds of battle golems she had brought with her.

She crossed her arms across her chest as she sent them enmasse towards the annihilated camp.

'Alicia, I'll get you back soon.'

* * *

><p>Darkness.<p>

[Master...]

A faint voice called out to him.

An endless blue skyline, broken up by towering skyscrapers.

[Please wake up, Master...]

Holding hands with a short haired brunet, dressed in a leather jacket with a hoodie, as they walked amongst the grass and trees. His face, somewhat expressionless, still conveys a hint of pleasure by being together.

[I don't want to be alone again.]

Yuuno groaned.

[Master!]

The blond's eyes opened. He immediately wished he hadn't as a sharp spike of agony stabbed into his temple. Yuuno dazedly took in his surroundings, finding himself lying on his side amongst rubble and steel ground.

Behind him were several large pieces of rubble.

A shining red glow two feet ahead of him caused him to blink a few times. His vision sharpened back to normal, spotting Raising Heart's staff form sticking out amongst some rocks. Off in the distance, he could make out a large pit with an old fashioned tram system sliding along the rail set on the roof of the cavern he found himself in.

"Where..." Yuuno coughed. "Are the others?" He asked, tone solidifying as he tried to push himself up. His ribs twitched, but a quick bit of mental arithmetic summoned forth healing mana to his right hand, which he placed on his side.

[They didn't make it Master.] Raising Heart paused. [I apologize, sir.]

Yuuno's face fell. He gazed down at his knees as he silently finished healing himself. Once the pain on his side faded away, he gingerly got up to his feet and made his way over to Raising Heart.

"It's fine..." He softly replied, wrenching the staff out from the rocks around it. "Have you managed to reassert contact with the others up top?"

Raising Heart dimmed slightly.

"I suppose not, then." Yuuno closed his eyes. The dust that choked the air was thick enough that even his environmental field wasn't filtering out all of it. "We don't have a lot of time either." He observed as he looked around.

[Oxygen levels minimal.] Raising Heart agreed. [Scans show that this facility has a backup energy source available.]

Yuuno nodded. It was probably used to maintain the seals on the samples.

"Let's hope it has enough so we can get out." Yuuno muttered, knowing he didn't have enough energy to keep the field up and teleport himself out of this pit. The blond turned towards the rubble behind him and gave it a deep bow.

"I'm sorry. We're moving on ahead." The boy thickly told his comrades. "We'll get you all out, I swear." He turned and made his way towards the tram on this side of the pit.

In the distance, he could see a building on the cliff walls of this cavern.

* * *

><p>The battle golems alighted on the surface of the planet and immediately began to fan out. Some of them were devoted to sweeping their scanners past the corpses that littered the grounds, registering them amongst the list of diggers that had arrived, making sure none had survived.<p>

Others used their weaponry to destroy everything that hadn't been annihilated on the opening attack unleashed by their master. Their cannons left only ash in their wake as they stomped through the annihilated plains.

The final, and largest of the golems, were positioning markers around the spot that that was directly over the facility.

High in the skies above, the Garden of Time slipped out of the Dimensional Sea. The asteroid shined in the dusky skies with a fierce and terrible yellow light.

* * *

><p>Yuuno and Raising Heart got off the tram at their destination. The blond's goggles were flooded with information that his Device was passively gathering for him. His soft footsteps clicked on the tile floor beneath him as he walked away from the docking station and towards a door set against the wall of the cavern.<p>

A panel next to the door let out a beep as a holographic window popped up in front of him. It showed an open palm, causing Yuuno to briefly stop. The image then switched over towards a card being swiped through a reader. The image continued cycling back and forth for the two.

"So, they need an ID, huh." Yuuno unnecessarily mused.

[That is so, Master.]

A faint rumble near the top of the cavern caused Yuuno to glance up. He then looked over at the holographic image, lightly chewing on his lower lip.

[It will take time to decipher the lock, Master.] Raising Heart spoke up, picking up on Yuuno's worry. [Time we may not have.]

The blond, aware of that due to the sounds he could hear above, slowly nodded in agreement.

"Recommendations?"

Raising Heart's gem began to brighten as it began to gather mana.

"Thought so."

Moments later, the cliff side had gained a new hole as Yuuno rushed into the facility proper. He heard a roar behind him as the roof of the cavern collapsed. His goggles completely burnt out their shielding as they filtered out the excess light generated by a monstrously huge bolt of lightning that had pierced through the earth.

Yuuno stood and stared in horror, ripping off the useless goggles from his head as the light of the dusk sun filtered down into the massive cavern.

[Master...] Raising Heart spoke up. [We have incoming hostiles.]

Yuuno shook off his surprise as massive battle golems, armed with highly advanced weaponry, began to descend from the skies above.

He really wished he only had to worry about potentially suffocating down here now.

* * *

><p>"What's this?" Precia wondered, observing a flash of motion in the Blackwatch laboratories through the sensors of her golems. Her eyes narrowed as she spotted a child gaze up at her puppets before rushing into the building. "So someone survived, did they..."<p>

The thought of the boy finding the sample of Blacklight first filled Precia with fear.

"Kill him!" The woman shrieked.

…

The hallways were heavily burnt. Several holes were gouged in them as Yuuno desperately raced through the facility, a hairs width away from death as three massive golems lumbered after him. Their surfaces were only lightly scratched, testifying how ineffectual his one attempt at attacking them had gone for him.

One of them raised its cannon as they entered a straight dash down a hall and unleashed a devastating bolt of energy at Yuuno.

The blond, knowing it was impossible to dodge it, threw everything he had towards defense. His environmental field nearly shattered as he brought up a green barrier before his hands, letting the shield slice the blue ray in twain.

Both sides of the hallway were set ablaze as the entire hall shook as the beams cleaved through the walls.

Yuuno gasped, almost collapsing to his knees. The other two golems finally caught up to Yuuno, and quickly added their own attacks. The blond desperately threw himself into a side room, avoiding the shots as the hallway was engulfed with flame.

The blond was propelled into a table, knocking it over. With each glass that shattered on the ground next to him, dread crawled up Yuuno's back. He quickly crawled past the shattered pieces of glass, desperately praying that his barrier jacket kept them from piercing his skin.

'Master, the environmental field is at dangerous low levels.' Raising Heart warned Yuuno telepathically. 'We cannot sustain direct combat for much longer.'

'I don't think we have to worry about me being fighting them directly anymore.' The blond thought, wishing he could project sarcasm through his message. The sound of a golem stomping through the lab, smashing aside tables as its sensor audibly scanned through the room made him briefly pause as he squeezed himself in between two metal and plastic towers, hiding in their shadow for a moment.

'Master...I could attempt to self destruct.' Raising Heart offered. 'It could cause enough damage to serve as a smokescreen for your escape.'

The other two golems, presumably finishing looking for him in the ruined hallway, entered the room with the first one.

Yuuno stayed quiet.

'Mast-'

'Shut up, I'm thinking.' The blond closed his eyes as he heard the sounds of footsteps draw closer. He dug up everything he could remember about the dig. 'Blackwatch...' The name of which had caused him to send out a distress signal originally to the Bureau when he had discovered it on this ruined world. Did he cause this mess because of his signal? Was it intercepted?

The sound of the golems drawing closer. Their cannons began to power up.

'Blacklight...' A virus that had had gone out of control. Countless died. Countless more sought the power, only held in check by Blackwatch and eventually the Bureau itself when the original world had joined them.

Raising Heart dimmed as Yuuno thought about the avenger. The monster that had brought it all down in flaming ruins.

'...I'm going to drop my environmental field, Raising Heart. Help me focus all the mana beneath our feet. We're dropping into the bottom floor.'

'Master.' Raising Heart sounded alarmed.

"I'm dead either way." At the sound of his voice, the three golems began to converge on his location as their cannons began to whirl with deadly power. "I'll just choose how I go out." With that, he dropped his mana intensive field as he dove out behind cover.

The three golems fired.

* * *

><p>Precia Testarossa had a beatific smile on her face. Hovering within a stasis field, securely locked within her lab, was a sample of Blacklight itself. The dark woman idly ran her hand along the surface of the field, allowing the slight surge of electricity tingle up her arm from contact with the protective shield.<p>

'Units back on board.' A mechanical drone from the Garden itself spoke up.

Precia glanced away from the tube containing her daughter's salvation. "Status." She crisply demanded as she began to walk out of her lab and back to the bridge of the Garden so she could maneuver it back into the Dimensional Sea.

'No survivors.'

Precia grinned.

'Three lost units.'

"...hmph. I guess the boy had some fight in him." Precia scowled. The open air courtyard of her bridge appeared as she arrived, sitting down at the throne in the back. A display of the burning dig site below her appeared for her, but she immediately dismissed it. The woman began to channel magical energy into the Garden's control system.

The Garden shuddered as they returned to the Dimensional Sea. The chaotic swirls and eddies all around the asteroid appearing before her view screen.

'Destination?'

Precia pondered. Now that she had Blacklight, it was just a matter of time to bring Alicia back, but...

"The nearest inhabited planet."

'Setting course to Unadministered World 97.' The Garden smoothly replied.

She had very little time left.

"Engage." The Dimensional Sea grew chaotic as the Garden began to move. Precia gripped her throne as exhaustion began to make itself known. The woman's eyes slowly began to lower. She just needed a little bit of rest.

* * *

><p>Duke Rodgers, A-ranked Enforcer for the Time Space Bureau, had seen quite a lot of horrible things in his day, but nothing quite put the fear of the Kaiser in someone than a Blacklight Incident. As soon as he had received the distress signal from a Yuuno Scrya, he had alerted his superiors and immediately rushed to help the Scrya Clan suppress the materials.<p>

Hopefully they'd have the site itself opened and the virus sealed away by the time he got there.

Unfortunately, he was instead met by an annihilated encampment when he had landed his ship on the abandoned world. The Enforcer's expression was dark as he saw several signs of combat in the area. He half remembered that the only mages of particular note from the Scrya Clan tended to be defensive specialists – usually the first when it came to dealing with Blacklight since they were good with environmental fields.

"This was a slaughter." Duke clicked his tongue as he arrived at a large hole. His Device beeped as it confirmed that thunder elemental magic clung to the air around the gouge in the earth. He peered down, using magic to grant him night vision, and promptly felt a chill down his spine as he saw the facility on the cliff side.

"Olivie..." He cursed. The man began to descend, using his magic to reinforce the environmental field around his barrier jacket.

Once he was inside, Duke began to run for the area that the distress signal had reported most likely contained the samples. His expression grew more panicked as he saw several holes on the floors leading further down into the depths of the lab.

[WARNING! Blacklight detected!] His Device shrilly declared, causing the Bureau mage to instantly bring his staff before him.

A shuffling sound could be heard further ahead.

Duke slowly began to make his way towards the noise, dropping Area Search spheres behind him to prevent a sneak attack.

The noise grew louder as Duke drew closer.

The Bureau agent gathered mana in his linker core to unleash a fatal attack as he launched an Area Search around the corner up ahead.

The noise briefly paused as Duke triggered the sphere he had launched.

The torso of a battle golem was lying on its side. With its limbs ripped off its body, the machine could only helplessly move its head from side to side, causing the shuffling noise Duke had heard. The limbs themselves, which were scattered around it, tested positive with contact with Blacklight.

Duke took a shuddering breath.

[Incoming communication.] His Device beeped. [Acknowledge?]

"Go ahead." Duke allowed, nerves tense as he walked up to the golem.

'This is -sschkt- Heart.' A soft feminine voice spoke up. The transmission itself was very weak. '-sschkt- uploading?'

Duke, hoping that it was a survivor, provided more mana on his end to boost the signal.

'Repeat, please.' He requested.

'This is Raising Heart,' The monotone voice of a female spoke up. A quick confirmation determined that it was an Intelligent Device after checking on the broadcast identification. 'My Master, Yuuno Scrya, is in charge of the survey into this area.'

'What the hell happened?' Duke demanded.

'The site was attacked by these units. We have removed the communication device in them and are now proceeding to track the main force with it.'

"That's absurd!" Duke exclaimed. "The echos in the Sea make that impossible."

'Improbable. There is no impossible.' Raising Heart replied. The Device's response made the mage scowl.

"Put on your owner." He demanded. "He needs to return to the planet for questioning."

'That is no longer possible.' Raising Heart replied. 'Compatibility issues have arisen.'

"Wait..." Duke spoke up, a slow dawning dread making itself known as he looked at the torso of the battle golem. A fist sized hole had been punched into it easily. He quickly traced the signal using his Device, and found that it was still on the planet. "Exactly where you two are."

'I apologize, but we cannot. This was Master's last will.' Raising Heart replied. 'We will be borrowing your ship. Please follow us once your backup arrives.'

"Stop!" Duke demanded, spinning and racing back the way he came. "You can't let that thing get off planet!" He quickly accessed his Device's spell list and found an override for most general Intelligent Devices – hoping to knock it offline before it interfaced with his ship. "Override Code: Delta Dash Alpha 65!"

'Code denied.' Raising Heart bleated.

"How?" He demanded, but it was already too late as he felt the signal disconnect as it left the planet.

* * *

><p>"I didn't know machines had loyalty." Within the cockpit of the small shuttle, a blond haired boy spoke up. He observed the night skies of the world below give way to the stars above. "Was he really that important of a person?"<p>

He turned his green eyes onto a small red gemstone, which was resting on the controls of the ship through an interface port for Devices. Next to it rested a small box, with wires running from it running into the terminal sloppily.

[Switching to autopilot.]

The shuttle released a burst of energy ahead of it, piercing the veil into the Dimensional Sea.

The boy shrugged as he leaned back against his seat. "Well, I won't speak ill about the dead, I guess." He muttered as he glanced at his right hand. His fingers melded together, darkening to a pitch black tone as they lengthened into a sharp sickle. "He was nice enough to let me be born, after all."

* * *

><p>An auburn haired girl lightly hummed as she gazed out her window to the stars above. A faint melancholy was in her expression, blue eyes slightly dim as she rested up against the window sill.<p>

"Nanoha, it's time for dinner!" The sound of her sister drew her attention away from the stars.

"Coming, Miyuki!" Nanoha Takamachi shouted, shoving her faint feelings of helplessness back inside her heart before rushing off to join her family for dinner.

* * *

><p>I'm Nanoha Takamachi!<p>

I was supposed to be a normal third grader, but something about missions and atonement happened...

Now I'm a magical girl!

Just what kind of fate is in store for my city? And what about that boy whose name I don't yet know? Was agreeing to help him really alright?

Next time on "Pandora" : Vaccine Cannon Lyrical Nanoha!

[Be careful around him, Nanoha. He's dangerous.]


	7. Chapter 7

"Sunny Side Up"

General idea is to see about Caster getting a route. I wrote this to get my creativity working, so it's pretty rough. Let me know if it's worth working on still?

- Scene Break -

Shirou Emiya let out a large yawn, and sheepishly moved to cover his hand.

His friend, Issei Ryuudou, let out a hearty laugh. "I'm sorry I had to keep you so late, Emiya-kun." The priest in training and school president smiled at his best friend.

"Don't worry about it." The redhead shrugged it off, putting on his shoes as he rose in the entryway.

"You should have told me about the heater that broke down in Kuzuki-sensei's room." He chided with a wag of his finger. "I would have come to fix it."

"Well..." Issei sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck as he walked out with Shirou. "He didn't bother to tell us until I walked into his room last night to bring him some tea while he graded some papers."

Shirou shook his head in mild disbelief. "I know there's selfless stoicism, but I think he could even outdo you, Issei." He laughed, shamelessly unaware of how hypocritic that was coming from him.

Issei had a bland look on his face. "Well yes, but you didn't have to stay here so long just to fix it. For free nonetheless." He replied, pointing out the flaw in his friend's logic. "At least let the temple repay you for your time, Kuzuki-sensei is our honored guest, after all..."

Shirou laughed, clicking his tongue a bit in annoyance at being seen through. So much for that excuse.

"Sorry! I have to get home before Taiga gets back. See ya, Issei!" With that, the boy began to dash away.

"Wait! At least stay for dinner-!" Issei chased after him a few feet before stopping helplessly. "Kuzuki-sensei was going to bring the groceries soon..." He tsked as he saw his friend descend the stairs.

Shirou paused a quarter of the way down the steps, glancing back to assure himself Issei didn't follow.

He let out a sigh of relief. "That was good. Hate when Issei tries that." The boy muttered, awkward about how often his friend tried to repay him for just merely helping.

It wasn't like he did this for any thanks.

The redhead shook his head before pulling his beige coat a bit tighter around his torso and casually descended the rest of the way down. In his other hand he grasped onto his toolkit as he finally arrived at the bottom of the steps a few minutes later.

The night was pretty cold. It was good he got here tonight or they would've been really frigid up there on the hill. Still, with the moon starting to rise, Taiga was probably going to be home soon. What would he make tonight? Perhaps some sushi? Or...

Floating on the wind was the strange smell, not quite burned fish... no, but ashy...was someone burning something in the alley?

He turned from his route home, glancing into the dark side street, noticing someone there fallen on the floor, a battered bedsheet over them. This...someone homeless? He moved closer. Was this really where the burning smell had come from. "Hello? Are you alright?"

A pained moan answered her. The figure moved, causing the sight of that bedsheet to shift and reveal it was really a rich looking blue robe.

A woman with the bluest eyes he had ever seen looked up at him from an ashen face.

She tried to drag herself to her hands and knees, but immediately collapsed.

"You..." He stuttered a moment. Was this some victim of abuse? Driven from her home? He had so little to go on, but it was hard to believe she'd been out on the street...and those were bruises on her body.

He crouched down, gently wrapping an arm around her. "I'll protect you. My name is Shirou Emiya. Do you have anywhere to go?"

"...no." The woman sighed, sounding terribly resigned. Like if she was waiting for her death. "I have...nothing."

"No, that's not true..." He pulled off his jacket, wrapping it around her and lifting her up in a bridal carry. "I'll let you stay at my place," He started jogging off, heading back to his home. Taiga wouldn't be happy, but he couldn't just leave some abused woman on the side of the road. Even if she smelled strange.

It was pretty awkward holding onto the woman despite his own natural strength. His hands were trying desperately to not grab onto anything that they shouldn't - and why was this robe so thin and the woman so full and oh god don't think that way.

The blue haired woman merely continued gazing up at Shirou in wonder as she stayed silent the whole trip.

"You left your things behind..."

Shirou didn't look back at the tool box he had left in the middle of the road. "It's not as important." He simply replied.

The rest of the trip was quiet.

With a foot he opened the gate to his home, pushing in and heading in to the main room, carrying her to the guest bedroom and gently laying her against a wall. "One second..."

The doorbell rang...

He frowned, hurrying a bit as he set out a futon and gently settled her down on it. "I'll be back in a moment with some ointment and hopefully some clothes."

"SHIIIIROU," Taiga hungrily demanded as he was making his way back out.

"T-taiga..." Shirou flinched, taking two steps back from his guardian. "Why didn't you let yourself in?"

"The lights weren't on yet. I wanted to make sure you were home," She stalked over, eying him. "What stray did you pick up?" She instantly caught onto his flinching.

"...no one!" Shirou immediately blew it by trying to shift his body to block a certain door from view.

"...one?" Taiga's stomach rumbled. "I thought you brought a cat or something home. Did you bring someone who shouldn't be here? And you don't even trust your big sister?" She almost sounded growling. "And you forgot dinner too?"

Shirou flinched, but merely stood his ground instead of digging himself deeper. He crossed his arms in front of him.

Probably to add more armor to protect his heart.

"There's left overs. I had to help Ryuudou-kun at the temple."

She gave a smile. "Let's heat it up and eat... I know my Shirou-kun wouldn't let someone just starve in another room during dinner though," She smirked as she walked over to the table, patting his head. He was a good boy, but hiding something from her? Impossible!

"...er..." Shirou guiltily glanced away.

He really was adorably stupid about hiding things from her.

"Coming? Or do we need to go get someone?" She innocently blinked. "I mean dinner waits for no one!"

Shirou shuffled a bit. "...sorry!" He quickly bowed before dashing back into the room.

"...Good boy," She smirked, just wondering who he found. She might have to protect him from someone preying on his good nature.

The purple haired woman was lying quietly on the futon, looking almost blankly up at the ceiling, a sense of hopelessness about her.

Shirou entered the room a few moments later.

Medea glanced up, "Are you going to use me too? To force me to be your way?" She asked softly, as if she expected to be fitted with a slave collar.

"What?" Shirou yelped in alarm. His eyes suddenly narrowed and he pressed himself up against the door. "No!" He hissed at a lower tone of voice. "God - no. Not at all!" The teenager shook his head empathetically.

"Y...You're a mage too. Why did you rescue me? I'll fade soon," She sounded quite bitter about that, sitting up, her hair brushing across her shoulders. Despite how battered she seemed, she was gorgeous.

Shirou went pale at her observation.

So it was a secret? Could she take advantage of this? She couldn't even sense one of those damned Command Seals on him.

"W-what do you mean...?" He stammered.

She closed her eyes, "I want to live...but...I don't want to be a slave again. Can you give me that, Magus?" She stared, stepping toward him, tottering on her feet, yet demanding.

"Don't say that...!" Shirou's heart began hammering as he sweated. Who knew if Taiga was listening in. "W-why would I ever want a slave?"

He squeezed back against the door, desperately trapped between the woman and his guardian in the hall.

"Will you promise me that? Freedom in our contract? As a magus, I can bind to you, part of the Holy Grail War...To grant our wishes," She seemed to have trouble breathing. "Understand?"

Oh, like that was coherent... Maybe she just needed some food? But she seemed so serious. The Grail War? Like when Kiritsugu met him?

Shirou gasped, expression drawn back in horror. "I-it...it's started again?" He blurted in shock.

"Did you really not know?" She stared. "What kind of magus are you?" She was beginning to fade, semi-translucent.

"Oh...hell." Shirou took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

The ever familiar sensation of a hot iron stabbing into his spine made his body tremble a bit from the rushed activation of his circuits, but Shirou held steady as he took a step towards her.

"Shirou Emiya agrees to the contract." He blurted, knowing their time was up.

Medea's light blue eyes stared into him, widening a bit at just how weirdly he was forming the contract, a seal wrapping around them a moment as a burning sensation went into his hand...

On it, three sigils were being inscribed, Medea's body solidifying as she drained his prana. "This.. You are a strange one, but for now we are bound together," She sounded nervous, hiding it behind a tense face. She seemed so pretty a moment ago, it was a shame to see her so tense.

"What...a command seal?" He dumbly asked, looking at it in mute horror.

And what it represented, according to his deceased father.

She was looking at him deeply. "You...weren't trained were you? Do you even know anything about the Grail?"

"...enough that I need to destroy it." Shirou replied, but he quickly shook off his mood as he leaned forwards to grasp Caster by the shoulders. "You look much better now..." He mused, eyes concerned as he inspected her. "Are you still in pain?"

He could feel a faint burning from his magic circuits, indicating something had happened between the two of them.

"Y...you care?" She showed a briefly vulnerable gaze.

The door behind them slammed open, "Shirou, I'm Hungry...huh?" Taiga blinked, looking over the scene, the battered Medea in clear view. "What's this?"

"...so, who's up for dinner." Shirou quickly let go of the woman and stepped a safe amount of space away from Medea.

"But...who, Shirou, why are you taking home strange gorgeous woman and hiding them in your house?" Taiga was all strict as she looked over the very curvy Medea. "And...what happened to you?" She stared. "Are you alright?" A gentleness escaped from her petulant rage, noticing the still healing wounds on Medea.

"I..." Medea stammered, emotions turbulent as she glanced at Shirou and then at Taiga in confusion. Were these signs of concern fake?

She remembered the reason she was summoned, though.

"Your...brother," Medea's pitch changed questioningly as she stepped back from Taiga. "Helped me when he ran into me unconscious."

"You poor thing," Taiga just wrapped the girl up. "How could you just hide her back her, Shirou-kun? She needs food, caring, blankets, a real bed, and food," Taiga's own stomach rumbled.

"Y-yes, right away, Fuji-nee!" Shirou saluted, turning to rush off to get things ready.

Leaving Medea and Taiga alone.

The ancient sorceress glanced at the other woman, still feeling so weak from her near death experience. Worry sprang from her heart as she knelt down on the ground, trying to conserve her strength as she looked at Taiga a bit suspiciously.

"Don't work yourself up. Are you wounded anywhere Shirou can't see?" She walked over, tugging some bandages from a closet and walking back to Medea, her eyes that of a fierce tigress, caring for her children.

Medea distrustfully shied away, shaking her head a little. "No...I'm alright."

"No, you're not. I don't know why Shirou brought a poor girl like you here instead of the hospital, but that doesn't mean we won't take care of you. Now come on," She started tugging at Medea's clothing,

"We'll bandage you up, get you in warm clothes, and then we can all eat delicious cooking."

"I-I'm fine, really!" Medea barely managed to keep from panicking when the other woman laid her hands on her. She gripped onto her robe and pulled away from Taiga as quickly as possible. "P-please don't touch me."

"...were you?" She wondered, her eyes sympathetic and kind, "Did someone force themselves on you, miss?"

Medea's looked away, but her eyes were hard. "...I took care of it." She simply responded. Not wanting to talk about her problems anymore, she addressed Taiga from the side of her vision. "Tell me, why have you not trained your brother in the Art?"

"The art?" She asked with an innocent confusion that simple deception could manage. Either she was better at deception than Medea herself...or she truly didn't know? What kind of age was this?

"...may I get some privacy please?" Medea warily asked, disturbed at the reaction. "I'll bandage myself up, don't worry."

"...If you insist. But if you cause trouble to yourself, I'll be right back in here," The surprisingly strong young woman stepped out.

- Scene Break -

Shirou wiped his brow, the table just finished being set. He'd made a little more than usual, but he was hoping that the girl would be able to eat with them.

A knock at the door drew his attention, "May I come in?" Sakura's voice wondered.

"Of course you can, Sakura!" Shirou laughed a little, looking up as he saw his junior enter the door. "Did Ayako keep you late again?"

"Yup. It's just not the same without you, senpai. She's gotten her standards too high," She took off her slippers, walking into the house and softly smiling. "I guess I'm not too late if there's still food."

"Ahah, looks like we were all busy today." Shirou's humor faded a bit. "Eh, Sakura. Could I ask you for a favor?"

"Of...course?" She meekly replied, giving him a soft smile. "What is it?"

"Er..." Shirou awkwardly shifted in place. "I have a woman staying here. I think she was hurt, but I'm not really sure." He paused for a second to compose himself. "Could I ask for your help taking care of her?"

A slight flare of jealousy passed through Sakura's eyes. Another one? What was that sensation though? Another mage in this house? How...what had Shirou found? She had to see more.

"Well, I'll see what I can do, senpai. What's going on?"

Shirou felt guilty lying, but he swallowed the nagging urge. "Well, I think she might have been abused..." He quietly admitted, using the more shocking of the truths to conceal that she was a supernatural entity.

"Abused?" A witch getting...well, that actually wasn't too far to think. Sakura's eyes suddenly went flat, a neutral mask covering her face. Why did Shirou save that other girl...why not her?

"That's terrible."

"Yes, I saw her stumbling down by the mountains." Shirou shook his head with a genuinely worried expression. "I'm glad I found her. I don't think anyone else would have found her otherwise."

"That can happen," She said offhandedly. "Where is she now?" Sakura's voice was just carefully neutral. Missing a bit of the friendly charm she always wore.

"Uh, she's with Taiga-nee. In the third room past the staircase." Shirou gave her a slightly befuddled look. "I'll get everything ready down here."

"Alright," Sakura looked hesitant, "I'll take a look."

Walking down the halls, she spotted Taiga, giving a short wave. "Hello, Taiga-sensei." She sounded much more reserved than normal to the excessive teacher.

"Sakura-chan!" Taiga whined, moving up to the girl to hug her. "You gotta help me!" Her tone continued in the same vein. "There's this woman in the other room that was talking about The Art and then she locked me out and won't listen to me and I just wanted to help!" She babbled.

The Matou magus froze at the term Taiga used.

"...art? Like paintings?" Sakura tried to pleasantly brush the words off, but knew better.

Was...was this another Master for the Holy Grail War? So soon?

"I asked that too, but she insisted I should know better. Shirou might've rescued her but she seems a bit crazy," Taiga pouted a little.

"How about I go ahead and check on her?" Sakura gently tried to console her teacher. Her mind began to raise with frightening possibilities.

"Well..." She tapped her cheek. "We don't want to frighten her. I think she's been abused."

"...I heard." Sakura gripped her skirt a bit.

"I don't think she's trying to seduce him," The older woman tapped her cheek. "So you shouldn't get this uptight." In her own blunt way she was completely getting it wrong.

Sakura winced. "I-it isn't like that." She wiggled her hands in front of her, letting go of her crumbled skirt.

"Mmm, it shouldn't be. But I know the heat of the moment..." She tapped her shoulder. "I can spot a jealous girl."

The plum haired girl's hand twitched a bit. "C-can you go help senp-pai p-please, Fujimura-sensei?"

"Mmm...Alright, but don't tire her out too much," She patted her head. "And come down soon or I'll eat it all!"

"Thank you, Fujimura-sensei." Sakura dipped in a quick bow, watching her teacher head off. She turned towards the door and knocked.

"Shirou-san, is that you?" Medea's voice rang out, her eyes flicking suspiciously to the door. She told them she was getting cleaned up.

Outside, Sakura frowned as she did something she was loath to do.

She reached for the magic in her, and with the sensation of having her body bound with thick ropes, embraced her magecraft.

"N-no...senpai asked me to check on you." She timidly replied, her worry with her friend's safety foremost on her mind. It was enough to keep her from being disgusted at intentionally setting off the worms inside her body.

"Who are you?" The voice was cold, almost a hint of fear and anger coming through. The door still closed as Medea tugged some bandages tight, all tense like a coiled spring.

"I'm Sakura, senpai's friend." She stated, tensing at the tone in the woman's voice. The one fortunate thing about having these evil creatures in her was that her magecraft was stealthy. No modern magus should be able to detect her abilities.

If worse came to worse, that'd be what'd let her walk away from this alive if she snuck attack the potential enemy.

"Senpai sent me to help you." She paused. "Since Fujimura-sensei isn't a delicate touch."

Medea hissed, "Then how come you stand ready to attack me?" Her voice sounded fierce. "Is that it, a distraction? He seemed so kind...and so did she...but that was just to distract me?"

Sakura felt panic rise up in her. "Sorry, senpai!" With that she reinforced herself and blasted through the door, getting ready to drain the woman to death if needed.

"Sakura?" Shirou's voice wondered as he stepped into the hall. "What's going on?" He'd smelled it from both of them, overpowering the scent of his cooking. Gathering power from behind the door.

me: The door to Medea's room had been knocked down.

On the other side, was a scary sight.

Sakura was straddling the older woman, but seemed close to death. Her expression was ashen and pained as her own hands gripped Medea.

The older woman was almost completely gone, her body terribly transparent.

Shirou went white, feeling his heart leapt to his throat. "Sakura! Caster!"

Leaping towards the two, he could already feel the older of the two women hit dangerously low levels of magic. With no recourse, he smashed the back of Sakura's head, sending her unconscious to stop the curse she was actively pouring into Caster.

The girl let out a gasp of betrayal, eyes wide in fright as she passed out. Toppling over to the side and slumping onto the ground, he turned towards Caster.

"Cut the curse off!" He knew Sakura didn't have much more time either. Even the fact she hadn't instantly died was probably due to how weak Caster was already.

"T-traitor! Join her in death!" Caster wheezed, practically at death herself.

"Fine, switch the curse to me." Shirou insisted, falling ot his knees. "Eat my soul instead to restore yourself! Just spare Sakura!"

Caster's eyes widened. Her body began to dissolve as she turned to look at Shirou one last time.

That girl's power...

She clenched her jaw as she lunged, stumbling towards Sakura. The moment she hit her, her body exploded in a storm of motes of lights.

Shirou got blown backwards as an intense gale erupted from Sakura as the energy was drawn into her body.

Portraits and furniture crashed loudly into the ground. In the distance, Shirou could hear Taiga shouting for attention.

Sakura gasped, body twitching as her eyes snapped open. But unlike before, her plum eyes had been exchanged with a soft blue.

"You both only live because I chose to do this." A new voice came out of Sakura's throat. "Prove to me you aren't a traitor. Work with me to win the Holy Grail War for me."

Caster smiled at Shirou. "Or this girl will die."

- Scene Break -

Shirou's heart rapidly hammered in his chest. Standing in front of him was Medea, wearing the body of a girl he practically considered family. He nervously licked his lips, his face flushed from how badly everything had gone within moments.

Medea's eyes, currently gazing out through Sakura's, narrowed.

"What?" She demanded. "Are you going to back off now?"

The woman's voice had an undercurrent of pain. Of course the boy in front of her would act like this. Men had betrayed her time and again. Why wouldn't an immature, weak version of the same gender do it?

The anchor she had forcibly created by sacrificing her physical form was slowly coming apart. The magical nature of the body she had forcibly possessed was slowly undoing the bonds she had made. The girl's ability to siphon mana would have been interesting to study if she had had more time, but as it was...

Well, at least she could make it hurt for the boy before she left.

Whispering a word of power beneath her breath, the atmosphere around the room rapidly chilled, forming a razor sharp blade of ice at the throat of the girl she was using. "Speak!" She demanded, throat burning with the venom in her throat.

Her fists clenched her at her sides, drawing blood from the host body.

Shirou, realizing that he had run out of time, opened his mouth.

"Torture me instead."

He blurted the first thing, the only thing that he could think of.

Medea froze.

"What?" Her hands relaxed. Disbelieving what she heard, she prompted him to continue with bloodstained fingers. "Continue."

"If..." Shirou's voice was steady. His eyes were only for Medea. "I wanted to help you, but you only got hurt." Almost as if he didn't want to scare her, he raised his hands towards her. "It was my fault. My ignorance got you and my friend hurt."

The witch stared at his offered hand.

"I was negligent." The command seals were offered to her. "Just...please let Sakura go. I'll give you these." He paused, a hopeful look in his eyes as he tried to sweeten the deal.

Medea's mouth gaped open slightly.

A flash of a beautiful man, clad in bronze armor, appeared before her. The foamy waves of the sea crashed behind him, making him look like a god before her eyes.

"Some day, I will make you my queen." He smiled. "Trust me."

She smiled, a wicked look crossing her features.

"_Liar_."

With a command, the icicle twisted in mid-air, and launched itself at Shirou at incredible speeds. The weapon embedded itself in Shirou's thigh, sending him crashing to the ground with a muffled scream.

Medea walked over to the squirming figure of her Master. For some reason, the boy's arms were held stiffly at his sides, refusing to even attempt to pull the ice out of his injured thigh.

"What's wrong?" She sneered down at him. "Where's your silver tongue?" With a vicious kick, she smashed the ice further into his thigh, spilling more of her Master's blood onto the floor.

Shirou continued to tremble, but he finally looked up at her.

"I told you this was alright."

Medea staggered back. Angered by her body's reaction, she gestured at him, whispering another word of power.

"Then scream!" She shouted, making Shirou's body incredibly sensitive. Ignoring the faint shout of the Fujimura woman, Medea only cared about the fact that a painful wail ripped its way out of Shirou's throat. Throwing herself next to Shirou, she reached for the icicle and tore it free from his leg.

She reached for the open wound. Shirou thrashed, but his arms refused to move to defend himself.

"Don't ignore it!"

Her fingers reached in. Scraps of flesh tickled her knuckles.

"Don't ignore me!"

"Shirou!" Taiga shouted, her footsteps crashing on the hard ground. "What's going on h-Sakura?"

"This is what everyone who betrays me deserves!" Medea screeched. "They all deserve to suffer and die and-!"

_**LEAVE SENPAI ALONE!**_

Medea gagged, leaning away from Shirou like she had been physically struck. Spittle flew from her mouth. It felt like her own neck was trying to choke the life out of her. Seeing her chance, Taiga launched herself at the girl, slamming into her side and carrying the both of them away from Shirou. The shock of the two attacks on her was enough to rattle Medea out of her haze.

The first thing she noticed was the strong smell of urine in the air.

"W-wha...?" Medea babbled, but a coldly furious Taiga gazed down at her. "This is-" Stars exploded in her eyes as the older woman lay into her, the fists coming down on her face fast and furious. Medea let out a wheezing shriek from her clenched throat. She tried to raise her hands, sending Shirou's blood flying up into Taiga's face.

The woman looked even more apocalyptic.

"STOP!" A ragged voice roared.

Taiga froze in place. The older woman and Medea felt sick to her stomachs when they glanced to the side, and saw Shirou drag himself towards Medea. His expression was pale and blood stained the ground below him where his injured leg rubbed against the ground.

"...continue." His sherry eyes were steely.

- Scene Break -

It was an awkward dinner that night.

Taiga gripped onto her sides to prevent herself from attacking Sakura.

The girl was wearing a bandage over her left eye and smaller ones on her cheeks where the older woman had attacked her. She had a fragile air to her, like an antique doll that would shatter at any moment.

She refused to look at Taiga, focusing on Shirou while he finished placing the last band-aid on her face.

Shirou, moving away from the girl now that he applied the last bandage, took his own seat. The shorts he was wearing displayed the gauze that was wrapped around his thigh. Just looking at it made Taiga clutch at herself to try and restrain her temper.

"What happened?" She finally demanded, growling angrily. "Why can't we take you to the hospital? Where's that woman from before?"

Shirou, embarrassed at having relieved himself in front of the two girls, said nothing for a few moments. "Fuji-nee, how long have we known each other now?" He asked instead, picking at food that was woefully cold at this point.

A bit of nausea filled him as he looked at the shredded beef they were going to have tonight.

"That doesn't matt-!" Taiga began, slamming her hands on the table as she reared up, ready to spit fire.

Sakura trembled.

"Taiga." Shirou's voice was clear. The older woman froze, amazed at what she heard. "Please call Shinji and tell him that Sakura will be staying with me. To take care of the woman."

Taiga quietly shook her head, an expression of confusion and building anxiety.

"Please..." He reached out towards her. Shirou froze in mid motion as he saw the blue and purple eyes gazing back at him. He just couldn't finish his statement in the face of those heterochromic eyes.

So, this was going to be how it was, huh?

Shirou flashed Taiga a weary smile. Hiding the throb of pain in his leg, the boy shifted so he could face Taiga fully. Both other women were painfully aware of how he left his back open for Sakura.

"Fuji-nee, remember the fire ten years ago...?"

If he was going to win Medea over then he was going to have to be truthful from now on. No matter how much it began to hurt him to see Taiga's face begin to fall into deeper despair as he told her about how he met his father.

I'm sorry Fuji-nee.

- Scene Break -*

Fetid darkness surrounded him.

The magus who called himself Zouken Matou glanced up from where he was working on an experiment. The remains of a corpse he had dragged into the workshop underneath his home twitched while his latest familiar attempted to grant it locomotion again. A centipede like creature which was residing within the corpse eventually gave up at his mental command, sliding out from the cavity Zouken had created by having his crest worms crush the man's spine into powder.

"Hm. No, this breed won't do." The man mused, stroking his chin. "Perhaps I should make another trip to the Amazons next month."

His grandchildren, Shinji and Sakura - failures that they were - had finally gained enough experience that he could leave them behind without having to waste money on keeping them alive. Plus the crest worms within Sakura had been strengthened enough that they didn't need him monitoring them as intensely to make sure they weren't rejected.

A brief moment of nostalgia struck him as he walked away from the corpse, releasing his familiars to feast on it now that the experiment had failed. Ignoring the crunching and tearing sounds behind him, the magus walked to the center of his workshop.

If he was going to be heading out soon, it was best if he double checked on the status on the crest worms one last time.

With that thought, Zouken stood above the grating he used to use to lower Sakura down into the training pit. The murky, foul waters beneath him greeted his nostrils as he idly accessed them to check on their condition.

_Pain!_

"Gah-!"

A solar flare exploded before the magus' eyes. With a howl of fury and agony, he blindly struck in front of him. Raving like a mad man, he threw his head from side to side, staggering drunkenly through the workshop.

Yet the infernal sun refused to vanish.

Desperate to escape this searing pain, Zouken Matou did the only thing he had available. Collapsing to his hands and knees, his entire body quaked. A large lump flowed up his throat towards his mouth. Black ichor and worms were spewed forth onto the ground.

With great, heavy breaths, the magus - who's skin was rapidly looking more rubbery by the moment - continued to vomit forth great mouthful of worms. Zouken knew that it wasn't enough to escape his fate, though.

The man's form exploded as a backwash of magical power flowed through the connections between the crest worms inside Sakura and the ones inside Zouken. Pus erupted out of his skin as the thin layer of flesh he wore was torn apart. A few of the bulbous headed worms erupted into flame before they even hit the ground, the survivors shrieking and thrashing.

_Getawaygetawaygetawaygetaway!_

The majority of the collective angrily raced into the pits, splashing into the water to try and drive the burning image from the hive mind that was Zouken Matou. The hoard of creatures squirmed against each other, swimming in the darkness, and huddling fearfully.

_!_

Above them, aware that their master had been hurt, the familiars of the Matou family raged. They assaulted the walls in mindless fury, their screeches and shrieks echoing in the dank catacombs. Several of them simply dropped dead - their simple minds unable to handle the link they shared with their master when he had gone mad.

_PainPAINPaINPaInpaIN_

Yet it was this very same diffusion of madness; which was eased with the deaths of Zouken's familiars, that was the ancient magus' saving grace. With the death of all the creatures, Zouken's mind began to mend, the maddened beasts taking their master's insanity to the grave. It was the Matou magecraft, summed up in all its inglorious vileness.

Uncaring that he was profiting by taking the lives of the beasts above - the magus' mind, having been reduced to an infantile state all this time, began to rapidly evolve. There was only one goal in mind.

Revenge.

- Scene Break -

"Taiga-chan, you know I haven't had to do this for years, right?" Ernesto Arvayo, a grey haired member of the Fujimura group, rumbled as he gestured for Taiga and Sakura to bring Shirou into the house.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't remember anyone else that could do this at this time." She apologized, shamefully aware of what she was asking the licensed doctor to do. Making sure not to touch Sakura's hand, she shifted Shirou, placing him on top of the table in the center of the kitchen.

"It's fine." The former back alley doctor sighed. "I'm just glad you called me ahead of time. Just let me see what we have to do here." He knelt down by the red head's legs, unwrapping the gauze from them.

Taiga, gaze turning flinty, looked askew at Sakura.

Or was that Medea?

Sakura refused to move away from Shirou's side, clutching at his arm. The boy offered her a heartfelt smile in return. In the dim light of the Fujimura doctor's kitchen, the girl's blue and purple eyes glowed strangely.

The woman shuddered a little. How much was Sakura after Medea had seemingly taken her over?

Shirou glanced at Taiga, but his guardian glanced away. Feeling the bottom of his stomach drop, he mindlessly grunted, nodding or shaking his head to the inquiries of the doctor that the two women had brought him to.

A pregnant silence descended on them as the doctor cleaned the wound.

I said too much. Shirou anxiously thought, ignoring the man threading a needle before him. Now she's wrapped in this mess too. He clutched Sakura's hand, making her mistakenly offer him a brave smile as she squeezed back.

He really didn't care much about the needle entering his skin.

_They're both in danger. _

Shirou bit his lip, glancing between both Taiga and Sakura. The stories that his father had told him about the Grail War, even in what had to be their diluted states, were frightening accounts.

_What am I going to do now?_

Unbeknownst to Shirou, Taiga was thinking the same thing as she looked at Shirou and Sakura.

- Scene Break -

Medea was lost in a haze. Her surroundings kept changing on her, and the only thing that kept her in the here and now was her grip on Shirou's stained shirt. The dried blood on her hands clashed with the white shirt.

Her own aches were ignored in favor of offering her shoulder to the boy. Both teenagers stumbled a bit, the body that Medea had taken command of unable to support the male without the aid of Taiga. The adult looked over at them suspiciously for a few moments, but turned back to look at the doctor to continue her conversation with him.

"Are you both alright?" Shirou's hesitant question made another little piece of her shrivel up and die. When Medea refused to speak, despite being directly looked at by Shirou, she felt her presence get shoved aside.

"She's fine, senpai." Sakura spoke, causing Medea's head to grow foggier still. "Just tired." Now that Medea wasn't in direct control, Sakura's voice sounded incredibly fatigued.

"You're both going to have to rest." Taiga's sharp command heralded the woman's arrival. Behind her, the door to the doctor they had visited softly shut, leaving the three of them in the moonlit backyard. "Here, take these, Shirou."

Without another word, she thrust two crutches at Shirou's direction. The boy fumbled them for a brief moment, but was able to right himself with Sakura's help. The older woman glanced over at Sakura with an intense gaze, causing the teenager to flinch away.

Taiga looked like she had bitten something rotten when she saw Sakura's reaction.

"Let's go. I have to return the car to grandfather's place soon."

Sakura glanced at the ground as Taiga turned away. The blood on her hands taunted her as her entire body convulsed, but Shirou merely leaned up against her. Her instinctive reaction slowed and spastic twitches smoothed out into trembling.

Medea quietly took back control. As her mind cleared, the woman clutched at Shirou's shirt as both teenagers followed Taiga away to the nearby car.

- Scene Break -

The ride was quiet back to the Emiya house. Once they arrived, the driver that had originally brought the car over moved over to briefly talk to Taiga.

Shirou and Medea, both of them exhausted, moved towards the entrance of the house, drawing the attention of the driver.

"Are you sure he shouldn't go?" He asked.

Taiga grimaced and shook her head.

"Alright. You've always known best about that knucklehead." A look of fondness, shared amongst several of the Fujimura group when Taiga brought Shirou to them, flashed in front of the man's eyes. "Take care of him."

"I will." She sharply nodded. "Thank you for being quiet about all this, big brother."

The little brother of the Fujimura group looked at the serious expression on Taiga's face and broke out in an aborted snicker. The look on Taiga's face was priceless as her temper began to flare.

"What? What is it?" Her back heel instinctively slammed on the ground a bit. "I-it was just a simple

mistake!"

"Don't try and pretend to be part of the group." He chided, shaking his head as he finished swallowing his sniggers. "Your grandfather didn't want this for you, Fujimura-san."

Taiga glumly looked over at the house.

Her next words sent a shiver down the man's spine.

"I...might have to do something my grandfather won't like though." She gazed at him with a commanding gaze. "Let grandfather know that I know about Kiritsugu Emiya." She paused. "The whole truth." She concluded with a sad longing.

If he couldn't trust her in life.

"I need grandfather to give me the weapons he left behind."

The little brother sputtered.

"What? That isn-"

"Grandfather and Kiritsugu were close enough that he handles the estate for Shirou. He would have taken the weapons to secure them."

Maybe Taiga could earn Kiritsugu's trust in death.

She'd protect her boy from this monster called 'The Holy Grail War'!

- Scene Break -

"Are you sure that is alright?"

"Yes, this is fine." Shirou replied as Medea and him shuffled their pained bodies over to the veranda overlooking the yard. With her assistance, he moved to sit down on the edge, resting his side against one of the pillars.

Medea silently stood behind him, casting a shadow that wasn't even hers over the boy.

"The night...is really beautiful, isn't it?" Shirou wondered, looking up at the silver sliver of light hanging in the sky. Hearing no response from Medea nor Sakura, he thoughtfully continued. "I used to sit out here with my father all the time."

"O-oh...?"

From the tone of voice, it was hard to tell which of the two had answered him.

"Sounds kind of cheesy, huh?" He laughed. "Well, I guess I'm just as bad in my own way."

"Senpai, you should never dismiss yourself or your father." Sakura's voice blurted out. "Never..." She whispered.

The terrible story he had shared with them...

Sakura could feel tears begin to pool in her eyes.

Medea briefly thought about Jason. Was the idea that hateful man represented that important to Shirou and his father?

"Yeah." Shirou reached over, pulling the crutches away from the ground next to him. "Father thought that the moon, which shines brightest in the night, would always reveal the truth."

An open invitation.

Medea froze on the spot. Her mind began to frantically thrash within, trying to roll the idea over and over for any sign of foul play. The woman began to softly hyperventilate when she couldn't find anything wrong with the idea.

The early sight of Shirou, bloodied and dragging himself to her, flashed before her mind.

_**I'm sorry, Medea. For hurting you. Please don't stay mad with him.**_

Sakura's voice drove her out of her delusional state of over analysis.

_**I...love him.**_

"Hey, are you alright?" Shirou looked up at both of them, attracted by Medea's panic attack. Without even a glance at his crutches, the redhead shifted his hurt leg so he could lean towards her. Medea noticed the tightening around his eyes.

_**I love him so much it hurts.**_ Sakura's voice was tired. _**I think I would kill for him if it kept him safe. But maybe that's just me being hopeful.**_

Medea wrapped her arms around her, taking a step back from him. Shirou's expression fell, but he remained where he was.

_**Before...always...run...away...**_

"...Sakura?" Medea blurted, eyes widening. Shirou's expression grew scared as she continued in a higher tone.

_**...protect him...**_

"Sakura, answer me!" She angrily demanded. "You still have to pay, do you hear me?"

The fog over Medea's mind cleared up, but the stunned Heroic Spirit only could buckle to her knees and stare at Shirou.

"What's going on?" He demanded.

The sight of her two toned eyes silently crying was a terrible premonition.

"I..." Medea was stunned. "I don't know, Master."

The Command Seals on Shirou's arms, having been dull all along, lit up with a harsh red glare across the moonlight veranda.

Day had briefly returned to light up the night.

- Scene Break -

Deep beneath Mount Enzou, a presence began to stir.

- Scene Break -

From the depths of the crypt, a wave of enraged worms rose, skittering towards the sewer exit. Their enraged shrieks were like the cries of a newborn babe as they slid along the dirty pipes and foul wastes. With a new lease on existence, the collective will known as Zouken Matou only had two thoughts in his mind for now.

The first was to acquire a brand new body.

The second was to get revenge on whoever had stolen his Grail from him.

No matter what.


	8. Chapter 8

"Fuyuki Nekketsu Monogatari"

Fuyuki burned.

Kirei Kotomine and Gilgamesh found themselves overseeing a massive inferno just outside the municipal building where the Fourth Holy Grail War had tragically ended. The young man had a trembling smile on his lips, causing the Heroic Spirit at his side to confidently smirk as he observed the expression of joy on Kotomine's face.

"Kotomine, now do you understand what you are?"

They could distantly hear the moans of the damned. The flood of tar that had poured out of the black sun high above the battleground had done its vile deed. Having now caught aflame, the sea of mud had converted into deadly fire.

"Y-yes," The young priest stammered, expression filled with awe as he focused on the sight. He embraced his body, trying to contain the filthy, twisted joy that was rising deep within him. "I thank you for this gift, King of Heroes."

The priest's voice, choked with emotion, came out in ragged gasps towards the end. The pleasure within him, nearly overwhelming all of his senses, drove Kotomine to such distraction that he needed all of his will to keep himself from throwing himself onto his knees to joyfully weep.

Gilgamesh grinned.

"Good, now remember your end of our pact." The original Hero reminded Kotomine. Walking up to the trembling priest, he reached forwards and brushed his hand along the young priest's cheek. "You shall spend the rest of your days doing your utmost to please me, understand?"

Kotomine shakily nodded.

Neither of the two even noticed as a duster clad man, the only other survivor of their battle, desperately stumbled away to try and find a survivor within the blaze.

- Scene Break -

Kirei wearily glanced at the mirror in front of him. The man briefly acknowledged the deep lines along the edges of his eyes before turning to shave himself for the day. The morning cold seeped deeply into his bones, slowing his motions as he dressed in his robes for services today.

Exiting the bathroom once he was ready for the day, the priest walked through the empty hallways of the church he had inherited from his father. Thinking about Risei Kotomine made Kirei briefly pause in thought, hand rising to his arm, briefly touching the Command Seals that were hidden beneath his sleeve.

Thinking about how his father had left them brought no pleasure to the priest. However, before he could realize what he was doing, Kirei was wandering towards the direction of his father's old room. The priest frowned as he glanced at the locked door, briefly glancing down at his legs suspiciously.

Feeling no trace of Gilgamesh's presence, Kirei turned and walked away from the room, only offering one last glance to the door.

Why didn't the fool stay alive just one more day.

Kirei's fists clenched, imagining they could have wrapped around an imaginary throat.

- Scene Break -

Kirei glanced out of his office, still clad in his clerical robes despite the late hour. The faint smell of decay clung to him from one of his examinations of the crypt below the church.

He grinned as he remembered the squirming sacks of meat.

The austere room the man was resting in had a window that faced Fuyuki proper, with a breathtaking view of the cityscape. Under the full moon, Kirei glanced at it with as much interest as one would regard a dungbeetle.

A bottle of wine and one of a set of glasses kept the priest company as he slowly drank.

"Kotomine."

Kirei waited a few moments, rolling the wine around in his glass before glancing over his shoulder. Entering the room, dressed as he always was for bed, was his Gilgamesh. The golden haired man frowned, looking like he wanted to speak.

"What a disgusting mood you've been in lately." Gilgamesh sneered instead. With a casual motion, he went to take his seat, grabbing his own glass. "You didn't even invite your King to share drinks with you?" He scoffed. "Be grateful I show you leniency for your work on preserving my treasures."

Kirei merely nodded, aware of how easily the man could crush him. The priest was still not entirely sure why Gilgamesh stayed with him. The undying creatures that the Hero fed off to maintain the fuel for his terrible weapons could easily be replaced by other methods.

Then again, the priest was a twisted being. It just wasn't his duty to question.

"I will be heading out on another trip soon." Gilgamesh annouced after swallowing a mouthful of wine. Over the years, a resigned note of finality was entering his words whenever he spoke. "I have finished exploring all of Europe."

"The verdict?" Kirei prompted, curious as to what the King of Heroes had found.

"Nothing." He spat back. "It is all worthless."

Kirei found himself wishing he had been able to see Kiritsugu Emiya's death in the Grail Fire.

- Scene Break -

"I-I'm sorry. It was just so sudden!" The young woman before Kirei looked utterly devastated. With tears running down her face, ruining the faint traces of makeup she wore to hide a haggard expression, she looked absolutely lovely to Kirei.

"No, I understand." The priest nodded. "It must be...awkward to be in your situation." He kindly responded, wanting to delay the amount of time he could look at the woman in front of him. The priest handed the brunette a tissue.

"Thank you." She gave him a teary smile.

Kirei realized he shouldn't have sympathized that well; the smile that was dwarfing the sadness in her eyes only dulled her beauty.

Seeing the man's slight frown, the young woman worriedly apologized. "I'm sorry. My family doesn't...really believe in this faith." She paused, brushing her eyes with the tissue. "But the...deceased wished to be buried."

Hearing her agonized tone of voice, Kirei replied with a hollow tone and a gentle smile. "Please be at ease. Regardless of what may happen to him when he's returned to the earth, all of us are given our just rewards." His words, chosen to pick at the woman's belief about the afterlife, had their intent as she only grew more miserable.

Reminding believers in Shinto about how the worms would be ravaging their loved ones bodies was one of the few genuine pleasures he had left. Even observing the undying husks had lost its appeal for Kirei over time.

Kirei eagerly awaited the woman's response, but was disappointed as her vunerable expression vanished completely. The female in front of him had clarity of purpose behind her, and she wielded it expertly to hide her emotions.

"Emiya-san always did seem to hate himself the most."

"What?"

The priest stared at the woman in shock.

"Did you say Emiya?" He softly demanded. "Kiritsugu Emiya?"

"Huh?" She blinked, expression becoming more natural. "Did you know Emiya-san?"

- Scene Break -

The next time Gilgamesh returned to the church, he found that Kirei Kotomine had ravaged his old office. The furniture had been broken, paperwork had been torn to shreds, and even the walls had holes on them.

Amused at the pettiness in his priest's heart, Gilgamesh had sought his Kirei's magical signature.

"What's this?" The King of Heroes mocked. "Has my absence driven you insane, Kirei?" He grinned as he found the priest.

The new office had been located towards the other side of the building. Unlike the rest of the church, the furniture was brand new and there was even a window which had been installed.

"Did you use my money?" Gilgamesh's good mood soured as he glanced around the new office. "Just so you could...gaze at that terrible sight?" He wrinkled his nose.

The sight that greeted the King was the church's graveyard. Row after row of tombstones lined the area, a far more boring sight to see whilst drinking wine.

"The view is better." Kirei softly spoke up. His intense gaze was focused out towards the final resting place of his former Master. "It will keep me humble." He paused. "To better serve you, King of Heroes."

But the blond was able to see the content smile on Kirei's lips in the reflection of the glass.

Gilgamesh snorted.

"Liar."

- Scene Break -

"I'm heading off now, Shirou!"

Kirei concealed himself. Moments later, the woman that he had spoken with earlier walked past him. Fortunately for the priest, the darkness of his clothing combined with the night helped him conceal his presence from her.

So, the boy that the Magus Killer had left behind was named Shirou?

As the priest joined the foot traffic of salary workers returning home, the idea bounced around in his head. Just like an itch he couldn't scratch, it irritated and drove him mad as the priest arrived at a nearby bus stop and got on with the crowd.

Shuffling towards the back, Kirei turned to gaze out a nearby window. His neutral expression was betrayed by how he kept glancing in the direction of the Emiya home.

He wanted to see the child of the Magus Killer.

- Scene Break -

Shirou Emiya sighed as he rolled his neck. Feeling a satisfying pop answer him, the middle schooler glanced around at his school's sports field. Looking off to the distance, he could see the track and field team practicing off on one side, readying themselves for another meet that was going to happen in a week.

The boy patted down his dirt covered jogging sweats as he glanced down the race track.

"Emiya!"

The shout nearly made the boy leap out of his skin. With a guilty look, he turned to look at a group of his upperclassmen. They had varying looks of amusement as they jogged up towards him, all of them clad in the track team's uniform.

"Why aren't you with the rest of the team?"

"Well," Shirou began, drawing out his words as he saw them focus on him. "I was thinking of uh..." His nervous glance at the high jump bar gave him away.

"Still trying to do that?" The leader sighed. The other two with him shook their heads. "You have to be more realistic about these kinds of things."

The boy in front of him clamped his mouth shut, gaining a stubborn look in return. Seeing the defiant look on Shirou's face, the leader made an appeal to the boy's sense of responsibility.

"I know we dragged you into this because we needed someone to fill in on our relay, but you're never going to get better if you're constantly obsessed with this."

Shirou knew he was being petty, but he simply crossed his arms in front of him.

"I know." He replied, sighing. "But we still have a few more days, right?" He brought his hands together, expression practically begging for another chance.

The other boys glanced at each other. Their brows crinkled in consideration as they looked at the look Shirou was flashing them.

They did kind of pull him out when they had no one else...

"Okay." Their leader answered. "Just for today." Seeing Shirou brighten up, he held a finger up. "And this is it. We're going to take that freaking thing down so you don't get obsessed over it again!"

Shirou eagerly nodded.

Who knew that Taiga's begging look worked on other people?

- Scene Break -

Disappointment filled Kirei as he hid, discretely observing Shirou Emiya's daily routine. A few months had already passed since Kiritusgu Emiya had been buried at his church and the priest had only had thoughts of being able to continue his battle bounce around in his head.

He had hoped he'd find the successor to the Emiya name, but...

What he had found was less than impressive.

The boy which was exiting from the home showed no sign of being an excellent warrior like Kiritsugu Emiya had been. In fact, the man's senses, which admittedly were dulling these years, couldn't sense an average amount of magical power around the boy.

If Kiritsugu Emiya could be compared to the weaponry he had employed, this boy was more of a...

Peashooter.

Perhaps a slingshot.

For the rest of the day, the priest followed after the boy as he unguardedly went about doing his errands. Kirei's excitement gave way to a cold dread. Towards the end of the day, even as the sun began to sink in the distance, his expression was as expressive as a marble slate.

"It's all worthless."

The King of Heroes' words struck him particularly hard at that moment. Feeling his dreams turned to ash, the priest couldn't help but rise from his hiding place. His body, now feeling as heavy as lead, groaned as Kirei made to move back to his church.

But his eyes caught something.

Something strange.

The priest's vision, which had slackened, sharpened as he focused down into the school yard from his high vantage point. The dull, empty look in the boy's eyes had finally come to life. With a fire in him that Kirei hadn't seen all this time, he charged down the path towards a high jump bar. The sheer determination that the boy was racing with even made Kirei glance at the rest of the area to see if he wasn't being chased.

The joy jumped at that moment.

Kirei leaned forwards, gripping the edge of the roof.

The boy crashed into the jump bar and rebounded off it, taking it with him as he collapsed to the ground.

Kirei frowned in disappointment, grip slackening.

Then the boy stood up again.

And refused to stay down.

- Scene Break -

"Emiya, we're going home."

Shirou heard the call from behind him, but the exhausated boy was only able to half heartedly wave. Great heaving breaths escaped from his mouth as his entire body trembled. The sun in the distance was already setting.

"...that means we have to set everything away."

Shirou tiredly nodded, sweat flying off his body as he was finally forced to concede his loss. Reaching for the bottle of water he had set up on the side of his track, he urgently guzzled just enough to keep from passing out.

His upperclassmen looked a bit annoyed with him when Shirou turned back to look at them.

"I'll do it." Shirou replied, blinking to clear his vision. "I don't want you three to stay here late."

"But..."

"I'm sorry I was stubborn earlier." Shirou eagerly waved it off, expression going placid. "I just wanted to see if I could make the jump." He awkwardly laughed, rubbing his chest in a spot that he had come down hard on in his attempts to jump.

"Then why'd you do it so many times?" The leader of the group gestured, letting the other two boys with him go. The two of them quietly uttered thanks before rushing away. "There's a limit to things, you know."

"I...just wanted to see if I could do it, I guess?" Shirou's lips quirked into a small smile. It looked somewhat disturbing in the dusk sun reflected by the boy's eyes. "But what's done is done. I'll take care of these things for you, sir."

No, not reflected.

More like absorbed into his empty gaze.

Less than two minutes later, the upperclassman had left, glancing back at the Emiya boy worriedly as he quickly left him behind to clean up. Something about the boy's attitude today made his feet move all the quicker to carry him away from Shirou Emiya.

- Scene Break -

"Whew..." Shirou wiped his brow as he exited the school grounds. The street lights were coming on as he made his way down a side street to a local grocery. At his side, he loosely held onto a bag with his track uniform within it.

The boy's thoughts were already turning towards what to make for Taiga and laundrying his clothing when he saw a figure move directly in his path from a side street. Disoriented from the sudden appearance of the other person, Shirou was unable to keep himself from bumping into them. He winced as he was forced back a few steps, dropping his bag in the process.

"Oh! Excuse me!" The redhead worriedly mumbled, quickly stepping to the side and bowing for his rudeness. Seeing who he crashed into made worry creep into his tone as he continued. "I didn't mean to bump into you, Father."

"No, it's fine." The priest in front of him mysteriously smiled. The tall man reached down to the ground and plucked the bag, holding it out towards Shirou. "It is my fault, child."

Shirou shifted a bit, looking hesistant.

The priest chuckled at the child.

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'the meek shall inherit the Earth'?" He suddenly asked. Strangely enough, the priest had an intense look on his face. "Up until today I had always felt somewhat ambivalent about that, but I think I have to reassess myself..."

Feeling lost, Shirou only made a confused sound of agreement.

The priest flashed a smile and took Shirou's hand with his, handing the bag back to the boy.

"Please, go on with the grace of God, my son." Having said his peace, the man turned and walked past Shirou.

"Uh...thank you very much." Shirou flashed a polite smile at thepriest, but the man said nothing as he vanished into the night. "Huh...what was that about?" Deciding to put the thought away for now, Shirou raced the rest of the way home.

He didn't stop until he was back home.

- Scene Break -

"Shirou, are you going to be alright?" Fujimura Taiga anxiously bit on the bottom of her lip. The older woman and her young ward were both standing in the entranceway of the Emiya manor. While the teacher fretted, gripping and twisting her skirt a little, the red haired student was casually lacing up his shoes.

"Of course I will." Emiya Shirou paused, tugging the laces particularly hard one more time than was needed. "I'm just going to go see my father." Next to him was a bouquet of flowers that Taiga had brought with her before arriving.

"I can come with you..." She tentatively started.

Shirou laughed a little, shaking his head as he gingerly gripped the flowers. "No, I'll be alright." He looked up at her, flashing her a tiny grin. "Sakura doesn't know about this, so you have to cover for me this time, okay?" He tried to word things to reassure her.

Distract her from the fact that he was going to see Emiya Kiritsugu's grave after two years.

"Oh..." Taiga's weak demeanor and somewhat shallow smile wasn't quite what he hopped for. "Well, I'll say that Neko called you over on an emergency." She trailed off as he stood up, staring at her from the entranceway.

"Fuji-nee..."

"No, it's okay." Taiga's expression brightened a little. "I'm glad you decided to listen to me, though." She paused. "Kiritsugu would be happy you went to visit." The teacher reworded her previous statement.

Shirou nodded, a bit uncomfortable with the tense atmosphere.

"Well..."

"We can go together next time, Taiga-nee."

His insistance on that surprised Taiga, and her expression showed relief.

"Okay," She grinned. "Well, tell your father I said hello, alright?"

"Of course." Shirou smiled, pulling the bouquet closer to his chest. "I'll be back before it gets too late." He insisted, irritatedly scratching at the bandage around his hand. The bruises on it had driven Sakura to distraction recently.

Afterall, Kotomine Church wasn't that far away.

- Scene Break -

"I-it's amazing, Father Kotomine." Bazett Fragga McRemitz stuttered.

The marble pillars in the courtyard of Kotomine Church were beautiful, gleaming under the moonlight. A vast garden extended out as she was led into the spacious courtyard by her old friend.

Kotomine Kirei flashed her a placating smile. "Well, I'm fortunate that the church provides enough for me to get by on a day to day basis." He humbly replied. The priest glanced behind Bazett and saw the shadowy figure of Lancer follow boredly at his Master's heels.

"Still, I apologize that I took this long to get here." Bazett awkwardly mused, guilty looking away from a rose bush that had caught her attention to look at her former comrade. "I didn't think that last job would've delayed me this much."

"Think nothing of it." Kirei glanced at Lancer. "Would you care for some wine, Hero?" He wondered, wishing to know a little more about the blue haired man that came with Bazett.

Lancer blinked in surprise, but flashed him a grin. "Well, I'd love some!" He barked, eyes lighting up.

So, a fool obsessed with his own pleasure?

Kotomine smirked. "Well, I'll be glad to get you both a drink." He gestured for the two to follow him further inside. "We can catch up on things before I explain what the Mage's Association wishes you to accomplish here, Bazett."

Bazett cracked her knuckles, chin raised proudly.

Lancer smiled as he caught the woman's expression. 'Well, at least this is going to be an interesting battle.' The way she was acting warmed his heart slightly. 'I hope she's good enough to get me a good fight before this Grail business is done.'

Luck was unfortunately going to be in short supply soon.

- Scene Break -

Night had descended in earnest, causing the teenager to briefly shiver as he looked around the abandoned cemetary. Less than a hundred yards away, the Kotomine Church gazed over all the rows of tombstones.

"Good evening," Shirou awkwardly knelt at the tombstone before him. Taking the flowers that Taiga had thoughtfully picked out for him, he went ahead and set them on top of the granite surface of the memorial. "How are you doing, father?"

_Kiritsugu Emiya_

_Beloved father and friend._

Of course, the tombstone didn't answer back. Its plain face, with a simple statement of who rested beneath it, would never speak to him ever again.

The dead couldn't speak, after all. Even in this world of magic, once you were gone...

Shirou clenched his eyes shut.

In the silence of the night, he let out a ragged breath - held in since he last time he had seen the grave before him.

"...why did you have to leave me?" He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the stone. "Am I making you feel proud?"

The teenager let his words drift off, letting the calm breeze sweep past him. Keeping an ear peeled for anyone coming or going, he continued on in a softer tone.

"I'm getting better, father." He opened his eyes. A look of determination was on his face. "I didn't want to show up empty handed. I think I'm almost ready to master reinforcement."

His face fell.

'But that doesn't excuse leaving you alone.'

Shirou refused to voice the thought, rising to his feet instead.

"Let me get you some water." Shirou weakly told the flowers and grave, picking up a simple white urn with dried out flowers from Taiga's previous visit. "I'll be back." He promised, rushing out to find the water faucet for the graveyard.

- Scene Break -

"I'm really grateful that you allowed me this chance, Father Kotomine." Bazett sunk deeper within her seat. The ornate couch had swirling oak eddies carved into the grain of the hand rest she was leaning up against.

"Just call me Kirei. We were allies once." Kirei crossed over the rich carpeting with two glasses of wine in his hands, glancing at the woman with a faintly chiding look.

"O-oh..." Bazett blinked and smiled. "I'm sorry about that, Kirei." A more natural look finally took over her face. "You couldn't believe what a pain it was to hold myself back."

Kirei chuckled.

Having forgone taking a seat next to Bazett, Lancer smirked as he pushed away from a heavy bookcase to meet the priest halfway. Taking his glasses, he quirked his head towards the closed window on one of the sides of the room.

"A bit of a glum view though, don't you think?"

"Perhaps, but I think of it as showing my appreciation to those that have passed." Kirei shrugged, brushing past Lancer to give Bazett her own drink.

"Still, it's good to see someone familiar after all these years!" Bazett's voice boomed, happy that her old acquaintence wasn't putting up airs.

Kirei nodded. This was the reason that he had actually gone out of his way to contact her. Social isolation was something he had learned to take advantage of over the years to feed Gilgamesh enough power.

Even an Enforcer lost if they were all alone.

Before he could completely pull out of range, Bazett's hand gripped his arm.

"Take a seat, Kirei!" She smiled, pulling the man down quickly next to her. "We can talk about old times, right?"

The priest's eyes widened at the action, unintentionally causing Lancer to stifle a laugh.

'A bit of a stick in the mud, eh?' The Heroic Spirit silently thought. With an enjoyable wine in hand, the hero glanced away from the former compatriots and towards the window.

A motion was caught by Lancer's gaze.

Lancer blinked, glancing out the window. Unnoticed by Bazett and Kirei, Lancer's posture grew tense as he peered out the window and into the night.

'A child...?' No, it was someone older. 'An enemy?' While he wasn't sure, the figure skulking outside didn't seem to be intentionally hiding.

The blue and white of his shirt stood out entirely too much.

'Best make sure. Isn't the first time someone has hidden in plain sight.'

The spearsman glanced towards Bazett.

"Yes Lancer?" The woman had a slight flush of mirth on her cheeks, eyes sparkling slightly as she looked away. Even the priest seemed to have developed a softer smirk. "What is it?" She pressed when the man paused in thought.

"...I saw someone in the graveyard." While he regretted seeing the woman's smile evaporate like mist, Lancer knew that Bazett would want to prioritize this above anything else.

Or so he'd tell himself.

Kirei's expression went blank.

"Let's go check." Bazett insisted, tone steely as she stood up. Looking over to the side, she offered Kirei a reassuring smile. "Don't worry. We'll make sure that no one saw us come in." She assured the man.

"Of course. I have the utmost faith in your abilities."

'How troublesome,' Kirei thoughtfully quirked his head, watching Lancer dematerialize as Bazett rushed out of the lobby. 'Well, I'll have to make this messier than I had hoped for.'

The priest rose and followed Bazett and Lancer out.

"What a pair of hot heads." Gilgamesh spoke up, stepping out from the shadows of the inner garden. Dressed in his casual outfit, he met Kirei at the entrance to the chapel. The front door of the church was wide open, a testament to how quickly Bazett had left. "Are you sure we want that mutt? He seemed sort of stupid."

Kirei chuckled. "It's always best to hold onto your ace for the end, no?"

"Hmph, I suppose so." Gilgamesh agreed, the blond haired man crossing his arms. "I wouldn't want to waste my Noble Phantasms on lesser creatures."

The priest smiled. "I'm glad you agree."

"Go ahead and acquire those command seals, then." Gilgamesh shook his head. He looked put upon. "And do it fast. That wine is going to put her to sleep soon."

"Of course."

- Scene Break -

Shirou faintly smiled as he finished adjusting the flowers on the grave. He let out a sigh of contentment, rubbing a sheen of sweat off his forehead.

"There we go." The bit of exertion had done him good, and Shirou was feeling sharp again as he slapped his palms together. He rubbed them for warmth before he continued. "I'm glad that I could talk to you."

"Oi!" Shirou glanced away from the tombstone, surprise clear on his features. A short haired red head in a smart business suit raised a hand at him. "What are you doing out here so late?" A trace was accusation was in her tone, making Shirou wince.

"I'm sorry." He began when she was in earshot. "Am I trespassing?"

"No, it isn't that." She quickly checked the face of her watch, turning her wrist towards her face. "But it's pretty late. The priest was concerned when he saw you skulking in the shadows."

With a start, Shirou realized how late it had become. A look of sheepish resignation was on his face as he faintly shrugged, offering her a dumbfounded look. His expression must have told the woman all she needed to hear, as her aggressive posture relaxed.

"Boys shouldn't hang around places like this." A look reminiscient of the ones Taiga took up when she lectured Shirou began to form, but she suddenly shook her head. The woman looked a bit glum as bowed her head in apology. "Sorry. I get naggy sometimes."

Surprised by the sudden apology, Shirou followed her glance towards his father's tombstone.

"Ah," Shirou awkwardly rubbed at his shoulder. The fresh water could still be seen on the petals of the flowers. "Don't worry about it." He insisted as he rose to his feet. "I better head out now." The teenager dusted his jeans off and began to turn away.

"Hey, wait up..." The woman's weak entreaty made him freeze in place. Shirou almost tripped over his own feet as he watched the woman step closer towards him. "I didn't mean to drive you away. It's important to respect your family." She awkwardly gestured towards the tombstone.

Seeing how serious the woman was looking at him, Shirou let out a quiet noise of confirmation. In response, a brilliant smile appeared on the woman's face, making her almost glow beneath the silver moon.

Shirou choked, unable to stop himself from reacting to the way the woman suddenly looked adorable.

"W-what's wrong?" She stammered, even as he felt a hot blush creep up his neck. "A-are you alright?"

The woman's stammering only made the awkwardness that Shirou felt grow worse.

"I haven't come here in two years."

The admission burned Shirou. The look of disbelief on the young woman's face made him feel like a slug, but the teenager forced himself to look into her eyes. A faint hint of disgust was on the woman's expression.

"Oh."

Her tone went slightly cold.

"Yeah."

Shirou glanced back at the grave. He kept his eyes glued to the tombstone. He felt like a terrible person. Worst was the fact that he only truly felt bad because of the young woman's reaction.

He really was horrible.

"Hoo...now what's all of this, then?" An arrogant sneer cut through the tension. "Two pathetic fools who mock their betters?"

A blond man in an elegantly tailored suit appeared from around a set of thickly clustered trees.

"Not only do you spit on your ancestors, but you both are practically fornicating on the spot." The man looked disgusted.

Shirou was too stunned to respond, but the young woman with him grew enraged, face glowing bright red.

"Who do you think...?" The woman's words were cut off.

Shirou and the woman were assaulted by a wave of pure, murderous intent.

"Die."

With a simple word and a snap of his fingers, a shining ray of light erupted out of the air next to the blond. Just seeing the speed it was traveling at, Shirou somehow knew it would be impossible for the woman he was with to avoid it-

"I don't think so!"

A man dressed in a startling shade of blue suddenly materialized in front of the young woman, bringing a fearsome red spear in front of the weapon.

Steel loudly crashed against steel.

The weapon, which amazingly enough turned out to be a sword, swung head over head before embedding itself in his father's tombstone. Both Shirou and the woman went pale for different reasons, but they both found themselves simulatenously falling back.

"You were the one I sensed, weren't you?" The blue spearsman demanded. His features were heavily reminiscient of canines; to the point that sharp teeth were exposed as he snarled his question at his opponent.

The blond merely laughed.

"Oh dear." The calm voice of a new arrival didn't fit the situation at all, but it was enough to make Shirou look away from the frightening blond man. Wearing the outfit of a priest, the darkly clad figure gave the entire situation a placid glance. "It appears we've arrived too early, Gilgamesh."

"Well, this is more amusing than what you had planned, Kirei."

Both men had matching grins, cruelness dripping off their words. The priest in particular glanced at the woman next to Shirou. To his great surprise, she hadn't regained her normal complexion. In fact, she was looking deathly ill.

"What..." She demanded, clenching her fists. A look of utter betrayal was on her features. "What did you do to me?"

"Betray you?" Kirei interrupted. Unmoved by the look of rage that had replaced Bazett's shock, he instead chose to look at Shirou as he continued. "I suppose I have, Bazett."

Now that he had seen the man's smiling face, Shirou could see how hollow the proceeding smile was that was offered to him.

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to die along with her."

"You bastard!" Bazett roared, moving towards Kirei. Her entire body trembled with suppressed energy. "I'll kil-"

"Bazett!" The spearsman called out as the woman suddenly collapsed with a shocked cry.

"How dare you ignore your better!" Gilgamesh snarled. Multiple cracks echoed throughout the night as six more weapons, each as quickly fired from nothing as the sword from before had been, were expertly refelcted. However, unlike the original sword, these weapons tore up great chunks of the earth.

Shirou could only shake himself out of his daze as the ground beneath his feet heaved. He wasn't even able to vocalized his surprise as he found himself tumbling down next to Bazett. His hand lashed out and tugged her out of the way as a chunk of earth came crashing down where her leg had been.

The woman was deathly pale.

Another clash of weapons and upheaval later brought the spearsman to Shirou's side.

"Kid!" The spearsman shouted at him. Seeing Shirou look at him, he continued. "Get her out of here!"

"But-!"

"Please!" He interrupted. "Just give me your name! I'll find you both when I'm done here!"

Shirou glanced over towards the front. The air behind Gilgamesh was practically rippling with energy now.

A terrible assortment of weapons, each deadlier than the last, hovered around the smiling man.

"Unless you think you can handle this...?"

Shirou ignored the man's jab. "Shirou. Shirou Emiya." He told the spearsman.

"I'm Lancer."

Bazett painfully moaned, causing Shirou to look down. The sound was enough to draw Shirou's attention away from the intense gaze of the priest. Kirei, who had been silent all along as he gazed at the defiled tombstone of Kiritsugu Emiya, twisted in place when the boy had announced his name.

"Go!"

"Alright!" Shirou quickly swung Bazett into a fireman's carry and began to run away.

"I haven't given you permission you to run!" Gilgamesh roared, gesturing at Shirou. Ten weapons were sent screaming at the retreating pair's back, but Lancer was there. Spinning his weapon before him, the spearsman was able to send the earth shattering weapons flying away.

"Your fight is with me!" Lancer snarled.

- Scene Break -

'Gilgamesh defaced Kiritsugu's shrine.'

The thought gripped Kirei and refused to let him go throughout the melee. Without a concern to how Gilgamesh was doing, the priest continued to focus on the shattered tombstone. Quirking his head, Kirei squinted his eyes as he focused into the darkness of the earth.

Fortunately for Kirei, one of Gilgamesh's follow up attacks caused the earth to heave upwards. It was a simple matter of keeping his footing, and it allowed him to glance a brief peek into the tomb with his reinforced vision.

Kirei's breath grew heavier as he saw a flash of decrepit wood within-

"...Shirou Emiya."

The priest was brought back to reality by those two words. Feeling like he had been drenched in cold water, Kirei's interest instantly vanished as he twisted to look at the voice of the child he had been planning on removing to preserve the sanctity of the Holy Grail War.

"Emiya..." The word tumbled from his lips. "Shirou Emiya...?"

He could hardly dare to hope.

The sensation of warmth, which expanded without limit from within his robes.

A trembling smile, earnest in its profound happiness, stretched itself from one side of his face to another. Reaching into his robes, he drew out a small circular board, which had been urgently buzzing for the last few minutes.

Kirei fumbled the device, letting it fall to the ground due to his eagerness.

By this point, Shirou Emiya was almost out of visual range, but Kirei swiped the board up and pointed it at the retreating teenager.

It reacted positively, heat vanishing from the board.

"Hah...!" Kirei broke out in a sharp laugh. Clutching at his sides, the priest began to let out a rich, booming wave of laughter.

Gilgamesh, stunned by the outpouring of emotion from the priest, glanced away from his opponent. "Kirei?" In that moment, now that he wasn't under constant attack by the enemy, Lancer saw his chance.

"**Gae...BOLG**!"

- Scene Break -

"Ha-! Haaah!" Shirou was fighting to stay conscious as he raced down the incline. With the dead weight of Bazett on him, he was fighting to get enough air in his lungs as he desperately tried to put as much distance between him and the church as possible.

Shirou was grateful for the late hour as he used the system of alleys running throughout the city to avoid the few nightowls that were still awake.

"Ngh..." With one final gulp of defeat, Shirou collapsed against a wall, slamming himself and Bazett against it before stopping. Bazett let out a moan of pain, causing Shirou to wince at his oafish action, but the relief flooding his body was palpable.

So it was not without guilt that he lowered Bazett to the ground, briefly fighting the urge to make her comfortable. Moving towards the entrance of the alley he had taken them into, Shirou clung onto the side of the entrance and leaned forwards. Whilst his time was better spent glancing back in the direction they had retreated from, but even that was pointless as he couldn't make out any figures that might be following them.

What madness had he been dragged into?

Bazett made a horribly choked croaking sort of sound from deep within her throat.

"Bazett!" Shirou didn't know the woman, but he couldn't stop himself from vocalizing as he saw the look of agony on her face. Kneeling by her side, he took her hand, feeling worthless as the woman's lips pulled up in a pathetic look of resignation. "Don't you dare die on me!"

Unable to vocalize as the poison continued to sap her strength, Bazett trembled and let out another croaking cry. Her hand weakly gripped the boy's hand as she tried to apologize for her behavior, tried to ask for forgiveness for dragging him into the war...

But most importantly.

To try and save her Lancer.

'Cu Chulainn! Please run away!'

"La..." She gurgled.

- Scene Break -

"Gah-!" Gilgamesh bellowed, bloody spittle flowing out of his mouth. His entire body was curled around the viciously barbed spear slammed through his gut. A look of utter loathing was on his face as he focused on the arrogantly smiling spearsman.

Gilgamesh began to gather power, his very being trembling with disgust. The slight that had been handed to him would never vanish now. It would never disappear until the man before him was reduced to dust.

From within the distortion came a long handle with a pommel.

The smile on the spearsman vanished as he ripped the barbed spear out of Gilgamesh's torso. Gilgamesh only remained standing with sheer rage as he furiously gripped the sword within the Gates of Babylon.

Both warriors looked like they were about to end it.

"Tch!" Lancer suddenly turned and rushed sideways. Gilgamesh's rage refused to allow the spearsman to escape; Noble Phantasms exploded all around Lancer, cutting off avenues of retreat.

"Mongreeeel!" Gilgamesh hatefully spat. "You don't get to run!"

His vision, reddened by the damage to his body, only darkened further as Lancer grinned.

"Ah, looks like I have to cut and run." The telltale distortion of space began to form around the spearsman. "Let's finish our battle another time!"

"No! Get back here!"

The King's demand was summarily ignored as Lancer vanished, transported away by the sow of a Master. Gilgamesh's screams bellowed into the night. His rage, surpassed by the final sight, was aimless.

The night briefly lit as the graveyard around Gilgamesh was annihilated.

Axes cleaved trees apart.

Spears stabbed deep into the earth, violating even the graves of the dead.

Arrows were launched towards the church, swiftly reducing it to rubble.

This and more Gilgamesh did as his injury freely bled out, ruining his expensive suit.

But the worst thing was...

The worst thing...!

"Kirei!" He howled as he remembered how the priest sped away in the direction Shirou Emiya had left. "Get back here! Kirei Kotomine!"

Leaving him behind.

"Fool! You pathetic wretch!" Gilgamesh howled like a rabid dog. "I'll kill you, mongrel! I'll kill you all!" With a furious grasp, the King of Heroes began to draw medical supplies out of his treasury. Once he tended to his injuries, he would hunt down everyone that had slighted him that night.

Then they would die.

- Scene Break -

Kirei silently rushed down the streets of Fuyuki. He knew full well what it would look like to the King of Heroes when he ran after he had been hit by that Lancer's Noble Phantasm.

But he didn't care.

The only thing that mattered to him at that moment was to be the one to fight the son of the Magus Hunter. The desire burned within him, driving him to his wit's end. The second thing that Kirei Kotomine had ever wished had finally fallen into his lap.

It would go against everything that Gilgamesh himself had taught him if he didn't seize it. If the King of Heroes himself would stand in his way, then so be it.

Kirei Kotomine would simply have to destroy Gilgamesh if he stood in his path.

Drawing out the catalyst his former Master, Tokiomi Tohsaka, had once used to summon Gilgamesh in the last war, he finally arrived at his destination. Kirei glanced away from the remaining powder that had once been the fossilized remains of the first snake skin shedding. Bringing his fist to the door of the Tohsaka residence, Kirei slammed his fist on the door twice.

"Who's knocking at such a late hour- fake priest?" Clad in bright yellow cat pajamas, Rin Tohsaka intially looked enraged, but then shocked as she saw the condition that Kirei Kotomine was in. "Good god, what happened to you?"

The haggard, dirty priest glanced at Rin with a calm presence. Seeing his former student begin to relax, the man - bloody from self inflicted injuries to aid the image he was presenting - spoke to Rin.

"You must summon right away."

"Wha-"

"You must summon." He repeated again, handing the bag of material to Rin. "As Master of Tohsaka, you must step forth to protect your land. Two enemy Masters are looking to take a running battle into the heart of the city."

Rin's looked scared, but she quickly stepped back into her home, allowing Kirei to follow. Despite her going in first, she eventually fell into step with Kirei.

"What is this?" Rin looked at the bag. "I thought the war still hadn't started."

"It was the remains of the catalyst I could scrounge up." The priest quickly concluded. "From your father's summon during the last war." Despite himself, he couldn't help but tease Rin. "It looks like the war has begun earlier than expected."

"Tch...!"

It was fortunate for Kirei that he had reserves.

A spare Tohsaka Magi and King of Heroes would be more than enough to take down everything in the way of his goals.

- Scene Break -

Lancer was greeted to his Master near death, looking ghoulishly pale as her lips and fingers were turning blue. Before such a terrible sight, the spearsman shoved the Emiya boy away and swiftly began to carve runes on the walls of the alley. Bazett let out a gurgling cry, slightly pink foam bubbling from her mouth.

"How long has she been like this?" Lancer's voice was dangerously soft. He didn't stop his movements despite his question.

Shirou, wiping away the blood dripping from where his forehead hit into one of the walls, quickly answered.

"She called for you to come back." He winced as Lancer briefly stiffened. "Then she got even worse."

Lancer slammed his hands on the ground as an array of runes, smoothly sliced out of the building and ground, began to glow with his magic. Bazett's lips began to lose the terrible tint they had gained as the spearsman used all of his knowledge for healing magicks.

Feeling like a third wheel at this point, Shirou moved to keep watch. It was about the only thing the boy could do at this point.

Lancer ignored Shirou, focusing on healing his Master. It was only a few moments later that he had his result as the runes finally breached the first level of the curse placed on Bazett. The outside world lost definition as he dove past the surface level of the world.

Light faded first.

The divination runes allowed Lancer to see the true shape of things. The darkness was only seperated by defined lines of green energy, what he had been trained to recognize as the border of all things. While these predefined borders existed around everything, Lancer only cared on Bazett at the moment.

Everything except for Lancer and Bazett herself faded away, absorbed into the light green. His Master's body was blocky in this world, with more lines criss crossing her body as they kept everything that made her 'her' neatly organized.

This this revealed the problem right away. A slithering serpent coiled around her inner being. Even as he observed, the foul creature struck at another of the lines, injecting its foul venom. Bazett's entire being trembled, the boundaries clashing against each other as the venom brought chaos to order, melting the points together.

It was destroying her body using her very own power.

He'd need to set up a grand ritual if he would have any hope of saving her life.

With a curse, the man raised his hands from the ground. His vision returned to normal as the array of runes surrounding Bazett dimmed before dying out.

"Oi, you still alive?" He barked to the boy. "We're ready to move now." With a thought, he summoned his lance long enough to carve apart the runes

To Lancer's surprise, he got an answer.

"Where to?" Shirou glanced back, seeing Lancer take a healthier looking Bazett in his arms. His eyes narrowed a bit. "Is she alright?"

"She'll be better soon." Lancer flashed the teenager a reassuring grin. "And we're going to a mansion Bazett found. I have to set up a ritual to treat her." He mostly explained, trying to dumb it down for Shirou.

Surprisingly enough, he got a serious nod from him in return.

"Can I help you?" He wondered, looking at the destroyed runes. "I can't do that, but maybe I can do something else...?"

Lancer couldn't help but laugh, feeling his mood lighten. "Well, you can keep watch like you did before..." He began, but he only received a frown from Shirou.

"No, I mean, I never learned how to use rune magic." A dreadful feeling ran down Lancer's spine as Shirou finished, clenching his fist. "But I'm a magus. I can help you with a ritual if you need my help."

The very action exposed a stigmata on the back of his hand. It wasn't fully formed yet, but Lancer's keen eye could spot the Command Seals forming.

"You're..." Lancer breathed out. A triumphant grin crossed his face. "You're a Master!"

And so, a new Master entered the War.

- Scene Break -

"Kirei, it's almost time." Rin announced, looking away from the clock on the wall. She nervously shifted in place as she tried to focus on the summoning circle that Kirei was preparing. "Are you almost done?" She pressed.

Kirei made the final touch. With a nod, he stepped away from the circle and started walking towards the catalyst that he had kept ready.

"Good," Rin squeezed the ruby pendant she had found. She had been hoping she wouldn't need it right away. Then again, it wasn't like she had expected to have to summon so early either. "Are you sure I'll need this?"

"The Grail, while already reserving a spot for you, hasn't quite had time to prepare your Command Seals." Kirei replied from the worktable he was hovering over. On one side of the table was a ceremonial bowl that was filled with the remains of the fossilized snake skin, but the tool he was focusing on at the moment was the Azoth Dagger that he had granted Rin. "It's unfortunate, but we'll have to use your keepsake from Master to jumpstart the process."

Rin lightly ground her teeth together.

"I don't like it, but if we have to do that..."

"Oh, don't worry." Kirei softly assured Rin. As the pajama clad girl took a deep breath to concentrate on looking over the ritual for any errors, the priest grasped the weapon and tucked it into his robes. "This will definitely assure that Archer will win this war."

"I just care about stopping those idiots before they hurt anyone."

The ritual began.

- Scene Break -

The nearby clock it was past three in the morning as Lancer stepped away from Bazett. Exhausation like he had never felt before wore at him, but the spearman had a relieved smile on his face as he saw how deeply the woman was resting. 

"...is she alright?" Shirou walked into the room, holding a pan filled with water and a towel rag. A fully formed command seal was on the back of his hand. It was the tie that the two men now shared.

"Yes." Lancer held his tongue in check, mindful of the presence of his old Master. "The venom halted its progress when the drain of sustaining me was cut off. It was easy to purify it at that point."

"Ah..." Shirou replied, distracted as he looked back at Lancer. The entire room was covered with all manner of runes. "You, uh, made these really fast." He muttered in shock.

"You should have seen what my old teacher could do!" Lancer replied, laughing at the surprise on his new Master's face.

Shirou silently moved past Lancer. For a moment, the spearsman froze up when the redhead hovered over Bazett. His protective instincts over his old Master clashed against the belief that the boy would do nothing genuinely dangerous, but he was only able to relax when he saw the teenager begin to wipe down Bazett's face with a moist towel.

"I always knew Heroes were amazing."

"Kid..." Lancer trailed off. "Yeah, I guess we are." He weakly replied, glancing away from the boy.

The silence dragged on between them.

"I'm going to dematerialize." He finally spoke up. "I don't want you to be a drain on you."

"It's fine if you stay, Lancer." Shirou looked back up at him in confusion. "What if she wakes up? I don't want her to think I kidnapped her or something."

"You're too nice kid." Lancer stated, ignoring the logic bomb that Shirou dropped on him. "Oh, and her name is Bazett."

"What's her last name?" Shirou suddenly asked out of the blue.

"Huh?"

"I can't really call her by her name." Shirou responded in a no nonsense tone. "It's rude." He declared, glancing over his shoulder at Lancer.

Lancer stared.

"Kid, you realize I basically forced you to go along with us?"

"Yeah?"

"Then made you take that contract at spear point."

Shirou nodded, rubbing at his neck with his free hand. The sensation of the weapon hadn't quite left him yet.

"And **you** don't want to be rude now?" Lancer questioned, but it was really more of a demand.

"...I only call you Lancer because you don't have a last name." Shirou lamely defended himself. "It's okay at that point."

"-then I don't have a last name either." A weak, but incredibly dry voice spoke up from behind Shirou. Both Lancer and Shirou beamed as Bazett shifted her head to look at them. "What happened? Did you carry me back, Lancer?"

Her eyes narrowed as she glanced at her hands. The two remaining Command Seals on her hand were a dull color.

"Where's our contract?"

"Ah, Miss Bazett..." Shirou began, but the woman held her gloved hand up.

Lancer went tense.

"We've got trouble." Lancer announced, walking up to the window in the second floor after speaking. With one single glance out to the woods surrounding the mansion, he was able to see what was coming. It made him curse outloud.

"Bazett, Kid, we've got an incoming Golden Asshole to deal with."

- Scene Break -

Servant Archer's arrival to the Holy Grail War wasn't what he expected at all. A chaotic flash of sights were all he could register before he came tumbling down from a great distance. Disoriented by the swift return of his senses, the hero was bombarded with a dazzling amount of information from the device that had called him back into the world.

Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to made his body immaterial came five seconds too late. With a loud crash, he slammed through the ceiling of a home, taking chunks of the wood with him as he came crashing down onto a floor.

Indignity flared within his heart as he threw off the heaps of wood scattered on top of him. Anger was the next sensation to manifest as he wondered just what kind of magus would put a hero through such a thing and then demand their aid.

Most likely some rank amateur.

But curiousity won out in the end. With his head pressed against the ground, he was able to hear the sound of something heavy come crashing to the ground below him. Irritation trailed on the heels of this realization.

His Master had already fainted from the cost of calling him?

No, Servant Archer wasn't impressed at all with his new Master. Rising to his feet, the hero brushed off the sawdust that had covered him and began to move towards the closest door, trusting that the trail of magic she was seeing leading down to it would lead him to his Master's workshop.

Archer had only walked a few steps before the door grandly swept open, releasing a wave of potent energy. It was an impressively wasteful amount of power, really. He wondered if they had been trying to brute force the summon and that's why things had wound up like they had.

The hero silently observed as the figure of a grim faced man ascended the stairway. While the newcomer had the robes of a priest, blood coated one of his arms, instantly dispelling the image of a man of god.

In the other...

"That's a rather disgusting habit." Archer observed, looking at the slim arm dangling in the priest's hand. Three Command Seals were embedded in the back of the palm of the removed limb. "Did you happen to leave the saw blade down below?" He asked, curious if that was why the man was unarmed at the moment.

"My name is Kirei Kotomine. Your new Master." The man faintly grinned at Archer's questions. "Do not worry though, I am a man of peace."

"Is that what you tell all women?"

"Oh no," Kirei shook the arm, causing it to flop a bit. "This was because someone stood in the way of my desires."

"Ah, and what desire might that be?" Archer wondered, wondering what his Master might have been like, but putting the thought aside. It was obviously too late for that. Too late for that girl too, really. "Was it enough to kill for?"

Kirei's smile widened ghoulishly.

"Of course. In order to set aside my ten year grudge, and to finally lay my final wish to rest, - I will be the one to kill Shirou Emiya."

The bland expression on Archer's face briefly gave way to shock.

"Emiya...?"

"Is something the matter?" Kirei asked, blinking as the hero looked lost and confused. Archer even glanced around at their surroundings for a few moments. "Archer?" He tried again.

"...no." Archer reluctantly answered. He ran a hand through his short white hair before he nodded at the bloody arm. "So then..."

"Yes?"

"Tell me who we have to kill next, Master?"

- Scene Break -

Hello! I'm Rin Tohsaka!

I was supposed to be a normal Master in a Holy Grail War, but it seems I kind of fell into a bad pinch!

Now I'm down in the basement of my house!

Like one of those NEETs!

Or Sakura!

Just what kind of fate is in store for my city? And what about those two Servants that started this whole mess in the first place?

**Keep a chin up, Miss Tohsaka. They can't keep a good heroine down for long.**

Thanks, Avenger!

- Scene Break -

NEXT - Dawn of the First Day.

See you then!

**Bye bye.**


	9. Chapter 9

Tsukihime is the property of Type-Moon.

"A Day In The Life."

A faint chilly breeze brushed Hisui's lips and cheeks as she headed out that morning. Locking up the small gate behind her with fumbling fingers was a chore due to the thick gloves she had donned before leaving. Half melted slush splashed onto her coated arms as she struggled with the iron gate, but she was finally able to close and properly lock the black gate.

Hisui started walking away, glancing once last time back at her house through the bars on her one story home.

The dark interior glanced back at her from the windows.

Hisui decided she'd have to shovel the snow off the roof by tomorrow. While she didn't want to risk having it leak through the roof again this year, the redhead wished sometimes that she could get away with not having to do it.

Her left shoulder already ached at the thought of the self tasked errand.

Hisui sighed and started walking to the marketplace, switching the cloth bag she had in her left hand to her right hand as she descended the hill. Just like always, she felt an intense sensation on her back as she went to do her daily chores.

She wondered how many people from the mansion were following her today?

A surreptitious glance behind her at one point revealed at least one person, but she knew that the mansion didn't really celebrate the holidays. That one tail was probably closer to three or four in reality.

No one on the mansion's staff would be taking a day off today, even if it was a holiday. That aspect of things hadn't really changed with the transfer of responsibility; Miss Tohno hadn't been very big on holidays in the final few years.

However, unlike the past, Hisui bet that the ones that were working were only doing so very reluctantly. There was no love lost between the new head and the staff he was basically lording over these days.

"Good morning, Miss Tohno!" A cheerful voice bubbled.

The red haired woman was shaken out of her reverie. Her feet had carried her the rest of the way to the market as she had mused on things half heartedly. Shaking off the rest of her contemplative mood, Hisui glanced at the owner of the store with a faint smile.

"Good morning."

As the forty year old woman started prattling on about the neighborhood gossip, Hisui slipped back into a contemplative mood. She silently gazed at the local gossip as she drew closer to the counter, nodding wherever was appropriate.

It still felt odd for Hisui to have been granted that last name.

Still, it wasn't her place to question other's decisions. Hers was a life of acceptance, from birth until death.

This was just another thing to get used to.

- Scene Break -

"Please come back soon!" The spinster waved at Hisui as she left the door. The hint of desperate loneliness in the shop had only gotten more profound when the woman's most recent worker had quit the other day.

Hisui silently nodded. She wondered how few customers frequented the store, especially when the open look of gratitude briefly appeared on the shop owner's face.

Probably not enough.

Hisui clutched her purchases to her chest, the cloth bag with her week's supply of groceries swaying slightly as she began to head to the bus stop. Her docile expression gained a hint of annoyance as she saw the regular vagabonds that lingered around the stop.

Still, her inclination was not to shake the boat. Even as she felt the teenager's gazes on the her bare hands and face, Hisui couldn't help but feel awkward. A slight hint of nausea bubbled up in her stomache.

Hisui only she had been able to wrap a scarf around her face. Another layer of clothing over her long sleeved shirt and jeans would have gone a long way to let relax.

Come to think of it, didn't her husband have a spare?

She could always trouble him when she got home.

- Scene Break -

"I gotta admit, she is beautiful." One of a pair of college students spoke up. Towards the front of the bus, the red haired woman the two had been discretely eying got off. "I have to admit that your tastes are better than mine." He grudgingly allowed, slipping some cash to his friend.

The foreigner with him grinned.

"No, I don't think she'd accept it." He replied, his victory tainted with a bit of bitterness. He turned in his seat slightly, prodding his friend into doing that as well. "I've seen the type before."

"Huh?"

As the bus began to pull away, the pair saw the red haired woman began her lonely climb up the hill towards a dark mansion.

"Looks like she wants to withdraw from everything."

- Scene Break -

The sidehouse of the Tohno mansion, which Hisui and Shiki had done their best to repair in his final years, greeted Hisui's weary eyes.

"I'm home." Hisui softly called out as she walked into the entrance hall, merely reaching forwards to open it. There was no need for the lock to be set, and Hisui really didn't mind if someone from the branch families did skulk around when she wasn't at home.

Of course no one answered her, but the former maid had manners drilled into her by the staff which used to tend the vast grounds of the land she had inherited from Lady Akiha.

And her husband.

The cold house dulled Hisui's anxieties.

"Welcome home." She muttered to herself.

No matter who she lost, she'd always have her memories.


	10. Chapter 10

Carnival Phantasm – Double Standard

Shiki Tohno sighed, eyelids drooping a little bit as he walked arm in arm with Arcueid Brunestud. The True Ancestor happily continued chattering away, unaware or maybe just plain ignorant of the exhausation the boy was feeling.

Having somehow managed to get through his other four dates with the other girls in his life was seriously driving the boy to have a good old fashioned anemia attack right here in the park. He was truly grateful to Arcueid for keeping him standing up, not that his vampire girlfriend noticed she was managing to keep him up.

"...and then I transformed into Phantasmoon and beat Akiha back long enough to free that strangely familiar looking black dog with red eyes." Arcueid finished chatting about her day to Shiki, noticing that the boy looked a little bit pale. "Shiki? Are you alright?" She asked in concern, nose wrinkling a little as she leaned forward into his personal space.

Shiki smiled at her concern. "It's fine." Her concern was actually restoring his energy. "Do you want to go ahead and buy some snocones?" His offer made the blonde's eyes light up with happiness. "I'll take that for a yes."

Straightening up from his slouch, Shiki let himself get dragged off by the overly energetic vampire princess.

- Scene Break -

Gilgamesh sighed as he beheld his fool of a temporary Master desperately throw more of the money he had gotten him in the hopeless pursuit of a large stuffed panda. The three girls, mongrels from his master's school track team, were spending more of their time hopefully eyeing him instead of watching Shinji cursing and yelling at the stand owner.

The blond, dressed in his usual casual attire, crossed his arms as he looked over at the prize that Shinji was trying to earn. While he could somewhat admire the embroidery on the panda's back, he still wasn't sure why the bear was called Nanaya.

Eh, who could tell with these humans.

A brief pang of loneliness crossed his heart as he realized how much more superior he was to the lot of them. He couldn't even understand this era anymore, much less understand these people. The last time he had tried to negotiate with someone like he had with Enkidu, they had wound up a smear across a street.

_Oh ho. That Faker's scream was priceless._ Too bad he hadn't died. Then Saber-

Saber!

Realizing that he hadn't seen her in a while, Gilgamesh made up his mind.

"I'm leaving, Master." Gilgamesh called out, feeling charitable towards the idiot this day. "I will forego the usual five seconds of sword volleys this night in favor of three seconds." With that, the Heroic Spirit was off, disappointing the trio of girls and causing them to leave Shinji as well.

"...wait. Where is everyone?" Shinji spoke up five minutes later, realizing everyone had left him.

- Scene Break -

Shiki and Arcueid were at the exit to the park, sharing an ice cream cone between the two of them.

"Open wide, Shiki!" Arcueid happily held the cone in front of her face, baiting Shiki to move in and try to lick the ice cream. Shiki laughed and moved in. As expected, Arcueid moved the cone just at the last second, letting Shiki press his lips against hers.

"Arcueid!" Shiki blushed, smiling like a fool as he tried to keep up a pretense of disapproval with his girlfriend. "You shouldn't do those kinds of things in public."

Arcueid laughed as she danced away from Shiki, but she found herself bumping against the back of a blond that was exiting the park. She let out a gasp as she stumbled and began to fall back, but before Shiki could do anything, the blond man caught her.

The ice cream splatted onto the ground wetly as two sets of red eyes met.

"...Gilgamesh?"

"...princess?"

"...the hell?" Shiki questioned, hackles raised as he stared at the intimate hold that this so called Gilgamesh had on Arcueid. The blonde quickly bound away from her counterpart, transforming her hands into wicked looking claws.

Shiki instantly went on alert when he saw Gilgamesh merely smirk at Arcueid, drawing forth his knife and taking his glasses off.

"Hoo...Princess of the True Ancestors...and servant boy?" Gilgamesh's question made Shiki snarl a little. "Well met, this should be a battle of the ages!" A wild, excited smile crossed Gilgamesh's face as he snapped his fingers, summoning forth a key shaped sword out of nowhere.

"_GATE OF BABYLON!"_

"_MELTY BLOOD!"_

"_...FLIP OUT AND STAB THIS ARROGANT FUCK IN THE FACE!"_

- Scene Break -

And no one had dinner that nig-wrong script.

- Scene Break -

Gilgamesh and Arcueid clung onto each other, laughing like lunatics as strips of clothing dangled off them.

"That was priceless, Gil-chan! You should have seen their faces when you said you were the rules!"

"You were there for that? The mongrels needed to take out loans from me just to fix the city afterward!"

"Hahah! Those Necos will be fine True Ancestors someday!"

Trailing far behind them, Shiki was using a bent stop sign as a walking aid. His eyes glared death in a way that would have made Shiki Ryougi herself proud. If she could get herself to give a damn long enough, that is.

"So, you're certainly more ...emotive than you were last time we met." Gilgamesh replied, wiping his eyes as he looked at the blonde on his arm. Arcueid eagerly nodded, turning back to look at Shiki over her shoulder.

"Shiki there killed me! Apparently being cut into seventeen pieces means I become a real girl." Her cheerful statement brought looks of fear from those unfortunate enough to be within hearing range.

Shiki winced when a mother pulled her son, who looked eager at learning that there were real life ninjas that could flip out and murder people, away from him before hurrying away from Shiki in the opposite direction.

"Seventeen pieces, huh." Gilgamesh mused, wondering if that would work with Saber. "So he's your...?" He trailed off, hoping to find out more about the remarkably bendy boy. Gilgamesh wasn't sure that limbs were supposed to twist that way, but it was still surprising that the human had managed to avoid his sword volley.

"Oh, he's my boyfriend!" Arcueid helpfully pointed out.

"Ah, a consort, then." Gilgamesh translated to his worldview. Shiki began to straighten up a little bit as he proudly took in Arcueid's acknowledgement. "He seems like a mongrel to me, though." Only to deflate when Gilgamesh's barbed words struck his delicate maidenly heart. "Furthermore, a shady mongrel."

Arcueid taking the time to consider that devastated him, making him slump face first on the street.

"Shiki, why are you taking a nap?" Arcueid wondered, skipping away from Gilgamesh to kneel down by Shiki, poking the miserable little man in the side of his ribs. "Hey, it's not even bedtime yet, get up." Poke. "Get up." Poke.

"Perhaps there is a grain of truth to my words?" Gilgamesh wondered, moving closer to Shiki and the squatting Arcueid.

"Hm? Well, yeah. He's got lil' sis, those maids, India, and who knows how many more waiting in the wings." Arcueid chirped, making Shiki wince and Gilgamesh stare at the boy in shock.

"...the hell is your secr-er, I mean. MONGREL!"

Arcueid laughed it off. "It's fine, it's fine." She waved Gilgamesh's concern off. "It isn't like he's angry about when I slept with you, Gilgamesh."

"Oh, that's remarkably open minded of him. I would imagine he would have been intimidated following up after me." Gilgamesh mused, impressed despite himself. He stroked his chin in thought, nodding approvingly. "I will rate you at half a mongrel for that."

"...what." Shiki flatly intoned.

Arcueid blinked. "Wait, I didn't tell you?" She innocently wondered. "Yeah, after you carved me up that one time I had to rebuild my entire body from scratch." She awkwardly laughed, squirming a little bit. "That included...well, down there."

"...FFFFFFF!"

"Well, your Origin wasn't even on its third incarnation back then." Arcueid defended herself with a pout.

- Scene Break -

Meanwhile, in the opposite direction, one Shirou Emiya was desperately running for his life. Behind him, Rin Tohsaka, Sakura Matou, and Saber were collectively rushing him down while a pair of girls were trying to cut off his escape routes from the sides.

"You manwhore! You told me that I was the only armament you ever traced!" Nanako galloped after him on all four of her heels.

"Even the lord himself will not forgive this, Emiya." Traced Riesbyfe Stridberg, clad in only very abbreviated jean shorts and a black bra after a meeting with the Backalley Allegiance, coldly intoned as she held her Apocrypha at the ready.

"I just wanted to make everyone happy!" The redhead protested.

The group of six charged into the cross streets where Shiki was currently rising to his feet, ominous aura of death wafting off his body.

"...now I know how to kill." Shiki intoned as he drew his knife.

All that remained when the battle was over was a wasteland, Shiki Tohno, and Shirou Emiya.

All was ever a distant dystopia.

- Scene Break -

Would you like to learn how to fail less? If so, please enter the Curry Dojo!

Yes/No

The End!


	11. Chapter 11

Irisviel von Einzbern was flustered as she worriedly rushed from one side of her bedroom to the other. The luxurious looking bedroom was messy as the white haired woman was hurriedly packing clothing into a large suitcase.

"Oh no, oh no, it's so late!" She fretted, her white and gold gown wrinkled from having hurriedly put it on when she awoke. "Why didn't Kerry wake me up?"

Having finished packing, the woman's entire body heaved as she tried to zip up the overstuffed pack. Gripping it with both hands, she wobbled dangerously back and forth as she rushed out of her room. Along the way, several of the homunculi of the house glanced at her with faint confusion as she rushed up to a staircase.

One of the maids, a Sella-type, gained a look of horror as she saw Irisviel heave back.

"Wait, mistress!" She shouted, raising a hand, featherduster poised to attempt to stop the lady of the manor.

Too bad she already knew from her experiences with Irisviel that it wouldn't be enough.

"Kerry! Wait up for me!" Irisviel wailed, swinging with her hips as she threw the suitcase over the stairwell. A brief shout came from below as Irisviel hauled herself over the bannister as well in a smooth motion. "Don't leave me behind!"

Her hair fluttered as she plummeted, but her fall was broken as she came crashing down on top of her suitcase.

The bag, strained due to how stuffed full of clothing it was, gave up and spewed forth its contents around the entrance. In the aftermath of the disaster, Irisviel was the only figure that wasn't covered with the ornate dresses and underwear she favored. Up above, looking even paler than usual, the Sella-type homunculus was gripping onto the railing of the staircase. The house cleaner trembled as she took in the mess that Irisviel had created.

Loyal maids couldn't kill her masters.

That was the only thing staying her hand.

"Ilya!" Irisviel was sitting on a particular large pile of clothing as she looked at her daughter happily. "Where's your daddy?"

Ilyasviel von Einzbern giggled at her mother's happy expression. The little girl had green and brown paint on her cheeks along with camoflauge wear. She plucked at a lacy bit of cloth that had landed on the green canteen at her side before she finally spoke up.

"You're sitting on him!"

"Oh?" Irisviel looked down.

Kiritsugu Emiya groaned, looking up at her with a look of dismay. Only his face, similiarly marked up in the same paint as their daughter, could be seen all the clothing that covered his body.

"Good morning, honey!" She smiled. "Let's go on our hunting trip!"

- Scene Break -

Zero Phantasm

"The Importance of Family! - Part I"

- Scene Break -

"It's going to be so amazing, Ilya!" Irisviel exclaimed, a wide smile on her face as she spun with her daughter held up in the air. "We'll roast marshmellows and sing camp fires-"

Kiritsugu carefully cleared his throat.

The Sella-type clone shot dark looks at the trio as she brushed past them again. The broom gripped in her hands was moving in a blur as she swept up the shattered vases that had fallen over in the mistress's latest antics.

"Like WOuOH! WOuOH! WOuOH! YEI! YEI!" She swayed from side to side in a faux dance, delighting her daughter.

Ilya happily laughed at her mother's antics, bringing the smiling woman into a hug.

"Iri," Kiritsugu spoke up, finally drawing the attention of both Einzbern women. His expression was grave and terrible. "We're not going on a hunting trip."

Irisviel came to a stop.

"Not a camping trip...?"

"We're going on a fox hunt!" Ilya pumped her tiny fist up in the air. "I get to carry the bullets!"

Irisviel frowned. Immediately setting Ilya down on the ground, she hiked up her dress and rapidly moved towards Kiritsugu, who suddenly found the wallpaper in the room quite fascinating.

"Kerry." She spoke the word with an ominous tone, leaning her head to the left. "Why are you taking our daughter out shooting at her age?"

Kiritsugu looked to the right.

"It...uh, builds character."

Irisviel leaned her head to the right.

"You said there would be marshmellows."

Kiritsugu looked to his left.

At this point, the Sella-type homunculus stopped her pretenses of cleaning and stood next to Ilya. Both of them stared as Irisviel kept trying to look at Kiritsugu and the latter keep looking away from his wife.

"Want a lick?" Ilya wondered, pulling out a popsicle and unwrapping it.

The Sella-type maid's eyes widened.

"Do you really mean it?" The maid asked in a breathy voice. The little miss' kindness struck deep within the heart of the homunculus. "Can I have a lick?"

The long hours of back breaking labor...

The near heart attack inducing moments of suicidal stupidty from Irisviel...

The near misses with death from when she had to be live target practice for Kiritsugu...

The constant displays of skin she had to present Lord Acht; dressed in so many fetish outfits...

Ilya happily smiled, dazzling the maid with her goodnatured aura.

"You look like you need this, Sella." Ilya declared, handing the maid her popsicle. "I hope you like it!"

Even as Sella tightly gripped onto the popsicle, eyes shimmering with joy, she made two declaration in her hearts of hearts. First was that she was going to lay claim to the singular name of Sella from now on; no matter how many of her clones she had to crush before it was unconquested. Secondly was that...

"I will kill for you from this day forth, mistress." Sella pledged, going down on one knee before a confused Ilya. "Just tell me who to annihilate and I will move the heavens and earths themselves for you!"

Ilya blinked in confusion.

"'kay!" Ilya went back to happily smiling, not really understanding what Sella had meant by her words.

Ignored in the background, Irisviel was currently hogtying Kiritsugu with strings of ether.

- Scene Break -

"Yay! I love camping!"

Irisviel was wearing a hardy looking set of outdoors gear. With a large backpack and overly large hat with a lantern set on it, the woman only exposed her arms and legs in her button up flannel shirt and khaki short combo.

Kiritsugu, looking something frayed at the edges, was wearing the same type of outfit.

"Why are you here?" He bluntly asked the maid lingering in the back. Still dressed in her outfit from the mansion, she kept the largest backpack on her shoulder. Riding on her shoulders was a gleeful Ilya, who was eagerly looking around the woods around them.

"I have sworn my soul to Mistress Ilya."

"See, Ilya? This is why we make friends in this world!" Irisviel smiled, wagging a finger as she decided to take the opportunity to make a Life Lesson.

"To carry our stuff?"

"Of course! Indoctrination is the way of life for the Einzbern!"

"You are wise beyond your years, Mistress Irisviel."

"Go mom!"

The three women laughed in eerie synch, causing a shiver to race down Kiritsugu's spine.

"I'm...just going to go on ahead and scout." The man muttered, not at all fleeing from the Einzberns. It was more of a tactical withdrawal. "Bebacklater." He mumbled his words as he raced into the darkness of the woods.

"Bye, papa!"

Ilya's words made the other two women coming out of their laughter.

Quirking her head like a confused bird, Irisviel blinked her vivid red eyes as she looked around like she had seen something.

"What's wrong, Mistress Irisviel?"

"Uh...nothing, I guess." Irisviel deferred, shaking her head as she looked over at Ilyasviel and Sella with a smile. "So, let's go ahead and set up a fire pit!"

"Ooh! I thought daddy was going to do that after he scouted?" Ilya asked, but Irisviel shook her head.

"No, marriage is a partnership, honey." Irisviel rolled up her sleeves as she glanced around the clearing. "Both sides have to give as good as they get!"

"Oooh, is that why you two make those funny noises at nig-"

Sella gently covered Mistress Ilya's mouth.

Thankfully for Ilya, Irisviel was in the midst of hyping herself up. Finally seeing the best spot, she cracked her knees and brought her hands forwards. Magical power began to visibly erupt from her body.

"This is the power of our love!"

The explosion could be heard from several miles away.

- Scene Break -

"A man, a woman, and an amorphous blob of mercury walk into the woods. - Part I"

Both humans were dressed like they had walked out of a middle ages production. Ruffles were prominent for the woman's dress shirt. The man wore a dark blue jacket that completely covered him.

"Lord El-Melloi, may I ask why we're in such a dreadful place?" The woman coldly asked. Her name was Sola-Ui Nuada-Re Sophia-Ri and she was the reluctant fiancee of the male. Nominal male in her eyes. "Do you hate me so much that you want to throw me to the Einzbern's wolves?" She continued with a sneer.

The man, Kayneth Archibald El-Melloi, flinched like she had slapped him.

"Of course not, my beloved!" Kayneth declared, grandly gesturing at their surroundings. "I've brought you here to simply show you that your previous misconceptions about myself were incorrect, that's all!"

"Oh?" Sola pressed.

"I will no longer run away!" Kayneth bravely stated, gripping his hands. "For you, I will take on the world! The beasts of Einzbern forest, powerful and dangerous, shall dye my Mystic Code in your name!"

At his feet, his loyal Mystic Code, Volumen Hydragyrum, quivered as it lapped at its master's feet.

"So you brought me all the way out here just because I called you cowardly?" Sola asked, tone sharp as her eyes narrowed. "Are you some kind of loser? That duel was weeks ago!"

"But...!" Kayneth stammered. "I couldn't get my paid time off from the school until..."

Sola slapped her forehead.

"I'm done." She softly declared. "You're insane. Why couldn't I have been married to the Matou Family in Japan? At least they're freaks in the bed room."

Throwing her arms up into the air, Sola stormed off.

"Noooo!" Kayneth screamed in loss, chasing after his intended. "If you want to spice up the bedroom we can use the tentacles of my Mystic Code, Sola! The tentacles!" His voice emphasized the word in another wail.

The Mystic Code quivered in place for a moment.

'Oh why cannot my love realize that shrew does not love him?' Volumen Hydragyrum morbidly thought. 'You're too good for this word, Kayneth.' The Mystic Code began to drag itself after the pair of magi.

'However much it pains me, I will stand by his side until he realizes his folly.'

- Scene Break -

"The Importance of Family! - Part II"

Kiritsugu Emiya sighed as he ran his hand through his hair, resting against a tree. In the distance he could still see the plume of smoke rise up from where he had left his family behind. Aware that any game in the area had been scared off long ago, he set down his oversized backpack.

He grinned as he looked at the gun parts stuffed inside the bag.

"Kerry! Kerry, are you there?"

Kiritsugu panicked as he quickly zipped up his bag. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked around the tree.

"Iri, I wasn't even thinking of going hu-"

The maid blandly looked at him.

"Thinking of doing what?" She wondered, quirking her head.

"Why are you calling me Kerry." Kiritsugu demanded, answered her question with another question.

"Mistress Irisviel said she trained you to react on hearing that word." Sella responded, quirking her head. "It seems to work."

"Dammit." Kiritsugu cursed, browing wrinkling at the ominous sounding statement. "You don't get to call me that."

"Why not?"

"Because I hate that name!"

The blank faced maid merely intensified her stare. Both of them spend a silent minute exchanging gazes.

"How about Kerrytugu?"

"Denied."

- Scene Break -

"Welcome back, honey!" Irisviel merrily sang as Kiritsugu and Sella entered the clearing. The majority of it had been blown inwards into the earth, allowing dreadful flames and the howls of the damned and dying to reach up from the depths of the earth.

It reminded him of Fuyuki.

It gave Sella traumatic flashbacks to the last cosplay night with Lord Acht.

Irisviel had somehow managed to knock over enough trees over the pit of flames and had a large deer roasting over the open flame, held up by the trees.

Ilya was prodding at a puddle of black mud that was rising from the depths with a stick.

"Do these count as marshmellows?" She wondered, even as Kiritsugu smoothly walked over towards her and picked her up, carrying her away from the ooze.

"No, it's nasty, terrible stuff." He replied.

The mud, rejected once again, sadly skulked out into the woods.

Irisviel idly hummed. "It wasn't that bad..." She trailed off.

Kiritsugu gave her a flat look.

"You would."

Irisviel grinned. It was not an entirely friendly smile.

Sella casually reached over and pressed her entire body against its side, flipping the deer over so it could get evenly roasted. Summoning a string of water from the air itself, she send it stabbing into the depths of the animal.

"Dinner is now served." Sella chimed, sensing the temperature through her water whip.

"Yay! Let's eat!" Ilya cheered, hopping up and down eagerly.

- Scene Break -

Songs were sung and meat was devoured. The sheer amount of meat that Irisviel had consumed disturbed both Sella and Kiritsugu, but both of them figured she needed something to replenish all the magic she had used earlier that day.

"It's time to go to bed, Mistress Ilya." Sella announced. The declaration made Ilya look up at the maid through her eyelashes poutily.

"But it's so ear-eee..." Her defense was cut off by a massive yawn. She looked somewhat ashamed as she hung her head. "You win this round."

Irisviel chuckled as Sella picked Ilya up and took her to their tent. The woman was currently pressed up against Kiritsugu as they both looked at the smoldering embers of the pit she had blown out earlier that day.

"What's wrong, Kerry?" She asked, focusing on the look in Kiritsugu's face.

Kiritsugu instantly glanced down at Irisviel. Internally he winced as he reacted to that accured name again, but he didn't show it as he responded.

"...nothing."

Silence lingered for a few moments.

"...I'm sorry if I messed up your trip." Irisviel contritely looked down at the ground. She pulled away from the man, hiding her expression with her long locks of hair. A thick note of pain was in her voice as she continued. "That's why you lied to me, right?"

Kiritsugu felt his mouth go dry. His thoughts began to run about, rolling over each other in their panic to escape his lips as Irisviel clutched at herself. However, no matter how much he tried to project his words, his lips stayed closed.

"I see."

Unable to vocalize, he did the first thing he could when he saw Irisviel stand. Standing upwards, he embraced the woman from behind, resting his face in her hair. The woman squeaked, blushing red as her husbands arms wrapped around her.

"Kerry..."

- Scene Break -

Sella's lips quirked slightly upwards as she glanced out into the clearing. The master and mistress both wandered back towards their tent, holding hands and smiling at each other.

"...Sella?"

Turning her back towards the clearing, the maid saw a sleepy looking Ilyasviel in a puppy dog hoody and paw print pattern pajama.

"What are you doing?" Ilya wondered, ears flopping on her hoody.

Sella walked up to her and took her hand, leading the two of them back towards their tent.

"Ah...merely taking care of some dirty business." A true maid ensured there was no dissonance in the home, after all. The numbing spell should stop affecting Master Kiritsugu's jaw in about an hour.

Sella wished the man's words were as sweet as his actions.

"Sella?" Ilya broke the silence. "How did you manage to get a break to follow us?"

"A maid has her ways."

- Scene Break -*

In an undisclosed location in Castle Einzbern...

"All the food in the world isn't worth this!" Saber cried, trying to hold her a super short skirt down with both hands.

Her opponent, an old magus concealed by thick shadows behind a giant desk, continued to gestured at her with an armored gauntlet.

"Hahah! Mighty Wind! Mighty Wind!" Acht's voice warbled as he lashed the blonde maid with gusts of wind. While the attacks themselves did nothing to the woman wearing the black lacy outfit, it was strong enough to cause dangerous amounts of skin to be exposed with the flapping of the skirt.

It was like practicing magecraft and getting a wonderful show at the same time.

Acht loved it.

"Waaah! Get back here soon!" Saber squealed, trying to sway away from the attacks.

It was unfortunate that Saber hadn't learned that Instinct always lost to Base Lust.

"The Importance of Family! - Fin"

- Scene Break -*

"A man, a woman, and an amorphous blob of mercury walk into the woods. - Part II"

Kayneth sulked on top of a stone. In the distance he could see Sola happily eat in front the light of a warming campfire. Behind her, a tent was already set up as well. Looking around him, the magus only saw his Mystic Code and patches of rough, rocky ground.

"I'm hungry."

His stomach growled.

Volumen Hydragyrum swelled, looking almost shocked to the magus' eye. Before the man could even question it, the blob of mercury rushed deep into the woods. Kayneth rose to his feet in surprise as he heard a yip of pain.

His Mystic Code slithered back towards Kayneth. Within its depths were several chunks of meat, along with a fox tail.

"...waah!" Kayneth bawled, rushing up to Volumen Hydragyrum. He wrapped his arms around the ball of mercury. "Without you I'd have nothing!"

'There, there, Kayneth.' The Mystic Code warmly thought, reaching a tendril up to feed a hunk of meat to the magus. 'No need to cry. I'll always be with you.'

In the depths of the slime, a piece of black mud began to slowly and steadily taint the mercury even as neither magus or Mystic Code noticed it.

'**Always.**'

"A man, a woman, and an amorphous blob of mercury walk into the woods. - Fin"

- Scene Break -

"Einzbern Consultation Room!"

A cozy looking classroom with only two women were shown.

"Welcome to a new era in history!" Irisviel, wearing a pink kimono, clapped her hands merrily as she proudly lifted her chin. "This is the Einzbern Consultation Room, deliverer of all your dreams..." She spun before stopping in a pose with her pointer, index, and ring fingers hovering over her eye in a W shape. "...with wishcraft wielding wives!"

"That's amazing, teacher! So hip and edgy!" The other was a brunette in bloomers and a white shirt. Her high ponytail swayed from side to side as she gestured at their surroundings. "But does all of this count as 'new'? I think there's been at least two other versions of this done before!"

"Don't worry, Zecchan!" Irisviel tutted, looking the part of a noblewoman as she covered her lips. "After all, we have bloomers on our side! Bloomers are justice!"

Strangely enough, Zecchan actually looked a bit annoyed.

"But...I think someone already did that." Zecchan's weakly trailed off, especially when she saw how Irisviel's hair was floating up in an invisible updraft. The other woman's expression was shadowed, but something about her warned Zecchan to try to entertain her before all was lost.

"Uhm...ah...er..."

Zecchan never was the fastest thinker, unfortunately.

"I'll curse them!" Red markings ran up Irisviel's neck from within her kimono. The woman shook as she continued to rave. "I'll curse them all to death! Then we can be the only ones together in the world!"

Zecchan silently stared as Irisviel picked up a nearby desk and began to slam it against the blackboard. She glanced out towards the fourth wall.

"Uhm...I'm kind of shy, sorry. Look me up if you want to study English, though!" She apologetically bowed as she ended this segment.

End


	12. Chapter 12

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is the property of Gen Urobuchi

****"Intention"

Time was an endless river. It had no beginning and no end for Homura Akemi, divorced as she was from the rest of the world.

One moment she could be hunting down the cat, Amy, to keep Madoka from wasting her soul on the raggedy old thing and the next she was standing on top of a tanker truck full of fuel as she rammed it into a Witch at ninety miles per hour.

The exact moments that events started to flow before her in a mishmash of chaos had been lost to her awareness several time loops ago when Madoka had contracted with Kyubey to attempt to bring Sayaka and Kyoko back to life. Kyoko's foolishness had not only cost Homura an ally in attempting to bring Walpurgisnacht down, but it had doomed Madoka to a slow and insidious death from despair and madness when the... creatures that came back within Kyoko and Sayaka's skin had slowly and gradually made it clear that they were nothing like the people that had been within those bodies prior to the wish.

Homura should know, because she had one cajoled, manipulated, and whored herself out to one of her classmates into wishing for Madoka back once. That creature and her classmate were both quietly executed when she realized that death truly was the end for magical girls.

Yet again, here she rushed through the midst of the merry and bloody festival heralding the Queen of Witches. Beneath her feet were the corpses of several of her classmates, but with each of their lives, Homura brought a new weapon or ability to bear against Walpurgisnacht.

Armored cruisers, whisked from the Japanese Self Defense Force thanks to the selfless wish of a naïve girl two rows behind Homura. The girl always was easy to convince in the belief that authority was supreme and that they could rely on others to aid them.

Homura always felt a bit of grim mirth when the soldiers of the Defense Forces tore her down when she turned into a Witch. Oh well, it brought Homura more weapons, better weapons, than what she had access to early on with the yakuza. That was all that mattered.

A fleet of cruisers moved into range, operated remotely by Homura's techno empathy, which she had begun to get enhanced on each loop by another of her classmates.

A little bit of bicuriousity towards the ice queen image that Homura had polished to a sheen and the magical girl always had a flock of girls willing to do anything for their idol. It grew into fanaticism when a few hints were dropped and a few nights were sacrificed here and there.

The guns on the cruisers roared as one, tearing down a fleet of shadowy Familiars in front of her.

However, no one could ever find her on the nights when Madoka would draw close to a Witch. Those nights they only had her voice in their ears as she spoke nonsensical words of love to them through a cellphone; whilst keeping an eye on Madoka with reinforced eyesight granted to her by those foolish girls.

To keep variables down, those girls were forced to 'retire' before Walpurgisnacht arrived. The easiest method she found was arranging so her unwanted paramours ran afoul of Kyoko Sakura after Mami Tomoe died. For a while, she tried dropping them with Mami to keep her company.

She stopped doing that after the sixth time Mami slaughtered everyone after learning the destiny lying in wait for all magical girls once their Soul Gems blackened. It was an unnecessary action, one born from nearly forgotten memories of the blonde saving her alongside Madoka.

Besides, Witch-Mami was frighteningly powerful until she created her own Familiars. The damn thing also tended to gravitate towards Madoka more often than not too. Much better to simply take Mami herself out with a sniper rifle from afar and not bother.

Homura kept pressing onwards, semi automatic rifles in her hands as mortars and rockets devastated the city around her. The flames of the town reflected in her dark eyes, but she had the entirety of her vision focused on Walpurgisnacht herself.

The Witch was stunning as always, dressed in a ballgown spun of despair and absolute power. She continued her endless dance high above Homura, paying no attention to the tiny speck that was annihilating her trope as her figure hung upside down from her clockwork stage.

Homura had grown respectful of Walpurgisnacht over the course of the years. She frankly found it quite absurd that she had once hated the creature with so much passion at one point. The poor girl was as much of a victim as Madoka was whenever she sacrificed herself and became Gretchen.

It was terrible that all that power went to waste like that.

"Now then...let's end this." Homura finally spoke. The empty rifles were dropped to the ground as she pulled forth a rocket launcher from the folded space generated by her shield. Readying the launcher, she aimed the weapon at the figure floating high above her.

She began to mutter the sacrificial spell that Kyoko had been taught by Mami as she fired the first of the missiles, tipped with the crimson eye shaped gemstone belonging to some timeline's Kyoko, straight at the figure in the skies above.

- Scene Break -

Madoka Kaname let out a groan of pain, coming out of the slumber Sayaka Miki had enforced on her before that terrible storm had descended onto their city. The back of her neck ached with old pain as she dazedly looked up.

She realized she was being silently carried on the back of someone she least expected.

"Homura?" She blurted the cold girl's name out loud. The named girl paused and glanced back over her shoulder at Madoka. The depths of her dark eyes reflected Madoka's haggard appearance well, but her expression was as unflappable as always.

"Are you alright?" She simply asked, as if the fact that Mitakihara being in ruins around them was nothing but a curiousity. "Did Sayaka hurt you excessively?" Homura questioned, hoping that the blue haired girl hadn't done anything excessive in exchange for the safety of Kyosuke Kamijou.

"No, wait, what are you talking about?" Madoka demanded, eyes frightened as she took in the blasted corpses of several buildings. The ground itself had been scorched raw beneath their feet.

"Sayaka had to knock you unconscious." It was the only way to keep her out of it. "She wished for you and I to live." Only because she had whisked Kyosuke away from her and demanded such from her. "We're leaving town before the radiation can hurt you."

"But..." Madoka whimpered, panic building within her.

"It'll be fine."

That was right. It was all going to be fine now.

- Scene Break -

Homura had finally saved Madoka. The timid girl had tearfully clung onto Homura in the aftermath of what the media were calling the most devastating nuclear fallout since Chernobyl. Homura estimated that they'd find a new story in about a month.

The dark haired girl no longer had any pre-existing knowledge, so she moved to secure Madoka in a safe, controllable environment right away. With money that was stolen from several tens of thousands accounts across the country, Homura got Madoka and herself a home.

Madoka had asked how she had gotten that. Homura had only spoken to Madoka in this world just enough to forge a connection. It was easy to say that her family was affluent. The girl had immediately bought the lie, believing that she was sufficiently 'cool' enough, Madoka stated.

A twinge of warmth filled Homura at the praise.

- Scene Break -

A few nefarious people that Homura had known throughout her years helped her weave an illusion of legitimacy for Madoka afterward.

"Oh, no reason to leave, Madoka. My guardian here can take you in as well."

"Really, Homura-chan?"

"Of course. You can stay here with me. I have plenty of room."

"Th-thank you..."

From there, a few calls and some well placed bribes made sure that Homura Akemi and Madoka Kaname's situation was ignored. Those that didn't play along? Well, the yakuza that Homura used to steal from were very eager to have such a skilled goal getter amongst their number. It wasn't as good as going out herself and handling things, but she had to keep an eye on Madoka.

The Incubators were still trying to sniff around for Madoka.

- Scene Break -

The ruined remains of an Incubator dropped to the ground, body reduced to nothing more than fluff and a little mush. Even with her enhanced technological power, Homura still couldn't tell how those creatures were made. Perhaps it was simply better not to know.

'Why are you doing this?' The childlike voice of another Incubator, crept out of the darkness, followed the creature itself. 'We have done nothing to you to merit this sort of treatment. We are simply trying to extend our influence into this area to help you.'

Homura silently agreed with the analysis. It was getting more and more difficult as time wore on as more Witches were drawn into the area by a combination of Homura and Madoka, taxing even her enhanced abilities.

"This is my area. I don't want competition." Is what Homura said.

'I don't want to risk you meeting Madoka.' Is what her heart said, but Homura had long ago learned to shield the words from her heart from the Incubators. Even if it meant lying to herself.

'Then why don't we...' Was as far as the Incubator got before Homura perforated its body with her shotgun.

"Perhaps another night." Homura replied, speaking her final words as she turned and left the area in search of more Witches and Incubators.

More would always be waiting for her tomorrow night.

- Scene Break -

"Homura-chan, do you want to go out for a walk?" Madoka questioned out of the blue.

Homura instantly agreed.

For the next two hours, they wandered along the stores of town. A look of longing came across Madoka's face when she saw a few high schoolers in town, but it went away when she looked back at Homura.

"Do you want to go try on some clothes?" Madoka wondered. Homura's eyes caught the fluffy tip of an Incubator's tail amongst the crowd.

"No." Homura replied, pitching her tone of voice just right as she turned and walking away.

"...what's wrong?" Madoka questioned, following closely after her. Just as expected. "Are you feeling okay?"

Homura, using the glossy glass of the store fronts, suddenly realized that Madoka had gotten taller. "I don't like it when you look at other people." She suddenly blurted, surprising herself with the statement.

Madoka suddenly laughed, a sound like bells ringing.

Well, it was at least a somewhat true explanation.

- Scene Break -

It was a slow night. Homura only had to kill ten Incubators.

The magical girl walked away from the collapsing barrier with an ill gained Grief Seed in hand. It promptly joined the stock she had inside her pocket of distorted space with the rest of her weaponry. She looked up at the skies. Seeing them beginning to light up with the morning sun, Homura turned and began to head home so she could begin her day with Homura.

'Homura Akemi,' The name being spoken by an Incubator made a chill run down her back. 'There you are.'

A pistol was drawn from her space as she turned to face the Incubator.

'Will you talk with us now?' The Incubator quirked its head. 'Or do you only listen to Madoka Kaname?'

She promptly blew its head off.

- Scene Break -

Madoka had been surprised when Homura had come barreling into their home at four in the morning. Homura desperately clung onto her friend, babbling nonsense as her panicked reaction, something she had been so such to hammer out of herself fifty years ago, surged to life.

The girl merely brushed her hand through Homura's dark hair and whispered soothing words.

At one point their eyes met.

Homura became uncomfortably aware of the shift that Madoka was wearing. The taller girl's body heat radiated off her in waves, making Homura's head dizzy as she grew intoxicated with the other girl's presence.

Madoka pulled Homura down on top of her.

- Scene Break -

They were on a flight out of Japan a few hours later.

- Scene Break -

"Homura-chan, are we leaving again?" Madoka, sweet, tall Madoka, questioned as she held onto Homura's hand and allowed herself to be led away and to their car.

"Yes." She had seen another Incubator, it was time to go. "I think Rome is a good place this time of the year."

"Of course, Homura-chan." The older girl replied.

A few passing people turned and smiled at the pair and talked amongst themselves. Homura dismissed the statements from them about what an adorable pair of sisters they were as beneath her notice. Homura's ring and Soul Gem, which were firmly set on Madoka's hand, was all that mattered.

A pair of high school girls suddenly stepped in front of the two of them. Silver rings shone on their fingers.

'Madoka, Homura. How are you two today?' The voice of an Incubator spoke directly into their minds. 'Would you care to join us?'

The girls crossed their arms in front of their chests.

Madoka trembled a little besides Homura. The dark haired girl let go of the other girl's hand as she swiftly allowed two single shot guns slid out from her sleeves as she accessed her magic remotely from her Soul Gem. Homura thought that Mami would be proud as she fired.

The crowd around them panicked as the two girls went down in a heap. Homura took advantage of the chaos to grab onto Madoka and ran into the crowd, the natural and bottle dark haired girls blending into the crowd.

Only one more year to go.

- Scene Break -

More people came.

Homura killed them all.

- Scene Break -

Homura awoke late one night to find that Madoka wasn't in the bed next to hers. Spotting her missing robe, Homura swiftly began to panic, leaping from her bed and heading out of their hotel room as she tried to follow the trail of her Soul Gem.

She quickly found Madoka. Her face glowed in the light of the full moon, the colored contacts in her eyes shining as they reflected the beauty of the stars above. The wind lightly toyed with Madoka's long dark hair, making it sway around Madoka like a living thing.

Homura suddenly felt remorse at forcing the older girl hide herself like this. It felt like smearing a fine work of art with mud and dirt.

"Homura-chan, I don't think I can save you."

_No._

Homura suddenly felt sick as she saw a fluffy tail turn a corner behind Madoka. She began to stagger towards Madoka.

_Nononono!_

"I thought if I stayed by your side, I could keep you from doing anything wrong..." Madoka turned to face Homura, tears in her eyes, and a pink Soul Gem in her hands. "But I just made things worse for you, didn't I?"

"No!" Homura shrieked, rushing towards the taller girl and embracing her. Madoka staggered backwards as the dark haired girl wrapped her arms around Madoka, weeping into the other girl's chest and shaking her head to deny it.

"Incubator-san said that there will be no more people coming. Forgive me, Homura-chan." Madoka's arms trembled as they wrapped around the middle school girl. "Please, please forgive me for what I did to you."

Homura froze as Madoka pulled back and placed Homura's ring back into the younger girl's hand.

"And for what I'm going to do." Madoka's Soul Gem flashed as the terms of her wish were met. "I am too dirty to save you now, but I will send you to someone who can save you."

Homura's old shield, long since emptied of sand, reappeared in her hand. The hourglass within it was filled once again.

_Click._

Homura screamed as she was thrown away back Madoka. The last sight she saw was of a tearful Madoka gazing after her, Soul Gem clasped between her hands shining with all the magical potential her trips through time had granted her.

_Griiiiiind._

- Scene Break -

Homura woke up to the sounds of screaming next to her hospital bed. She desperately threw on her glasses.

Light purple eyes met dark purple eyes.

The younger of the two versions of Homura Akemi added her own scream to the one coming from the throat of the shield bearer.

- Scene Break -

"Only a heavenly and chaste soul, a soul that resounds with genuine praise for humanity, can save the story."

- Gen Urobuchi


	13. Chapter 13

Tsukihime is the property of Type-Moon.

Graduation Day

The school's front yard was packed to the brim with anxious looking teenagers. Clad in robes and squared caps, they anxiously fidgeted in place before the eyes of their family and friends who sat in front of them as they rose up a set of stairs.

"...Hitoshi Kanesaka..."

One of them in particular wore an expression of complete befuddlement as she adjusted her glasses. Ciel, distantly known as Elesia and most recently known as one of the members of the Burial Agency of the Catholic Church, looked lost as she shuffled closer to the pedestal set in the middle of the stage she was climbing.

Hitoshi, who Ciel recalled having once shared her bento with, let out a squeal of happiness as she took her graduation diploma from their principal. Before the elderly man could pull away, she gave him a terrific hug as she broke down in tears of joy, unnerving the man.

The short haired girl felt completely out of her depth as she looked around hazily. The crowd of onlookers watching her graduation made strange feelings surge within her as the chatter of people she had known for a while now chatted amongst themselves. Their voices, ahead and behind her, were tinged with an edge of nervousness but were predominately happy.

The crowd was filled with nothing but joyful tears and smiling faces.

And she was standing in the middle of all this like a sore thumb.

'Why am I here?" Ciel thought dazedly. 'I shouldn't be here.'

Fear surged within Ciel, akin to the sensation of claws ripping through her torso. The faces she was observing in the crowd began to blur together into a mass of stark, gaunt faces reaching towards her to pull them into their embrace.

Fangs and claws began to tear into her and...!

"Woah! Careful there, Ciel-san!" Kanjiro Minase, the former captain of the Archery team, reached forwards and grasped the upper half of Ciel's shoulder, arresting her forward momentum. His green eyes were dim with the weight of the ceremony, but they showed a spark of concern for her. "Are you alright?"

Ciel's senses, hauled back into the here and now, briefly stuttered. "Y-yeah..." She gasped, expression taut.

Kanjiro gave her a wan smile. "Take deep breaths." He advised, thinking she was worried about going up stage next. "It helps." The boy let go of Ciel's shoulder to discretely point off in the distance as his expression briefly lightened up. "Besides, you can't go passing out in front of your kohai, right?"

Ciel couldn't quite hide her joy as she followed her classmate's finger. At the end of Kanjiro's finger stood Shiki Tohno along the edges of the crowd with his friend Arihiko Inui. The dark haired teenager, having blended into the crowd - despite somehow wearing an orange and blue t-shirt - briefly met Ciel's gaze with an open, guileless expression of happiness.

Ciel suddenly remembered why she was here.

The principal offered an awkward smile to the crowd as Hitoshi was pulled away from him. "Continuing on, I'm most proud of our next student." He briefly coughed, voice gaining confidence as he composed himself. "She has managed to transfer in during her final year of studies and still managed to graduate at the top percentile of the class." The man glanced at Ciel with a pleasant and slightly proud smile. "Please come up and receive your recognition, Ciel Lavoie."

"Good luck." Kanjiro whispered in her ear.

Shiki and Arihiko let out cheers as Ciel's name was called up.

Ciel's legs began to carry her to the principal, a camera going off to take her picture when she firmly shook the man's hand while taking a diploma from him. With a watery smile and shining eyes, she turned to face the crowd.

Ciel offered a beautific smile to them.

A rooftop and two blocks away, a sleepy looking blonde in a white sweater and purple skirt lowered her hand from where she had been shielding her eyes. "It'll be fun playing with her more now that she's done with that place." With a faint smile and a yawn, Arcueid turned and started walking back in the direction of her apartment to go to sleep.

Only one more left to go!


	14. Chapter 14

The sounds of heels crunching into the ground caused the last terrestrial to turn away from his ship. Behind him, impossibly massive ark began to power up. Countless circuits lining the hull flared with light, giving the chromed surface a golden shine. Wings unfolded, preparing for its voyage away from its home.

The man, wearing a hermetically sealed suit, glanced down the ramp he had been ascending.

A blonde haired woman with red eyes and a silver dress glanced up at him.

"So long." He shrugged. There was no need for formalities.

"Farewell." The woman nodded once in agreement.

They had seen the worst and the best in each other at this point.

Still, there was no reason to be rude, right?

"Thanks for the fish." He smiled at her, placing a helmet over his head, sealing his suit shut as he turned back to his ship.

The terminal of Gaia blinked as the man boarded the last of the arks.

"They won't take kindly to you."

Both man and woman froze, surprised at the words that had come out of the latter's mouth.

The astronaut glanced back in surprise, gloved hands aborting their attempt at reaching for the lever that'd allow him into the ship.

Why were things always so -complicated-?

"We'll manage." In his attempt to assure the woman, the man freezes up. He shifts a bit in place when the woman narrows her crimson eyes at him. "Somehow." His attempt at softening up the previous statement, with the boyish smile he offers, is just enough to make the woman relax and smile.

"Just like always, huh?" She offered.

...so, so complicated.

"...I suppose so." The man finds himself standing at attention before the woman. "Sorry we left such a mess." He sheepishly bows his head, finding himself almost acting like a wet eared boy before a stern teacher.

She merely maintained the silent smile.

He flashed her a salute before he entered his ship.

Silence descended on the world for a brief moment, almost as it was holding its breath.

The last ark's engines came to life, screaming its defiance to the natural order one last time as it carried the massive ship far away from Earth.

It was okay, though. This was the last time.

"Fools." Despite everything, a faint, nostalgic smile appeared on her lips as she watched humanity take to the stars.

The golden light of the ark washed over everything below it as it rose through the burnt out skies. Its shining radiance was a harsh contrast to the blasted, stripped ruins of a metropolis that sprawled before the goddess now that the ark had ascended. The vitality sealed within the chrome vessel contrasted the dry, powdery earth.

Gaia's terminal took in the land around her.

It was a definite fixer upper.

But she couldn't be shown up by them, now could she?

"Hmph, better get to work, then." The blonde reached up for her skirts, hitching them up as she kicked off her heels. She waited until she was absolutely sure the golden dot in the heavens wouldn't return before she threw herself towards the city with wild abandon. An even wilder smile was on her face as the buildings began to collapse all around her.

As the goddess worked to rebuild her world, a strange idea began to form in the back of her mind.

'I wonder if I can top myself next time?'

Would it be the same or something new? She wasn't sure what would happen.

Maybe that was what made it so exciting.


End file.
